# Is there a relation between religiosity and gender stereotypes in the world?

Laurent Cordonier, Florian Cafiero, Gérald Bronner

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Laurent Cordonier, Florian Cafiero, Gérald Bronner. Is there a relation between religiosity and gender stereotypes in the world?. 2020. hal-02903144v2

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**How to cite this paper:**

Cordonier, L., Cafiero, F. & Bronner, G. (2020). Is there a relation between religiosity and gender stereotypes in the world? *Working paper*, https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02903144

# Is there a relation between religiosity and gender stereotypes in the world?

Cordonier, Laurent<sup>1,2,*</sup>, Cafiero, Florian<sup>1</sup>, & Bronner, Gérald<sup>1</sup>

## I. Introduction

In a 2020 report, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) points out that gender inequalities in the world have hardly decreased since 2010.<sup>1</sup> According to the report, this situation is partly due to the persistence of gender stereotypes, which “reinforce gendered identities and determine power relations that constrain women's and men's behaviour in ways that lead to inequality” (p. 6).

To measure the prevalence of gender stereotypes at country level, the UNDP uses an index called the *Gender Social Norms Index* (GSNI). The GSNI of a given country corresponds to the percentage of its population with at least one (GSNI) or two (GSNI2) gender stereotype(s) out of seven items tested. Overall, higher GSNI values indicate higher bias against gender equality.<sup>2</sup>

Commenting the UNDP report in the *Journal de Montréal*, the famous French-speaking journalist, novelist, and feminist Denise Bombardier argues that the UNDP seeks to overlook what she sees as an obvious correlation: the countries where gender stereotypes are most prevalent are Muslim countries.<sup>3</sup>

<footnote n="1"><sup>1</sup> Université de Paris, LIED (CNRS, UMR 8236)</footnote>

<footnote n="2"><sup>2</sup> Université de Lausanne, THEMA (Institut des Sciences Sociales)</footnote>

<footnote>* Corresponding author: laurent.cordonier@gmail.com</footnote>

<footnote n="1"><sup>1</sup> Human Development Perspectives report (2020), *Tackling Social Norms: A game changer for gender inequalities*, United Nations Development Programme, http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hd_perspectives_gsni.pdf</footnote>

<footnote n="2"><sup>2</sup> Human Development Perspectives report (2020), *Tackling Social Norms: A game changer for gender inequalities*, United Nations Development Programme, Frequently Asked Questions – Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI), http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/frequently_asked_questions_gsni.pdf</footnote>

<footnote n="3"><sup>3</sup> Denise Bombardier says that this report “... confirme [...] une corrélation que se garde bien de mettre en évidence l'organisme des Nations unies, à savoir le lien entre le poids de la religion et les préjugés à l'égard des femmes. Les pays musulmans se situent au sommet de cette liste infâme. En Jordanie, 99,3% des gens nourrissent des préjugés. Au Qatar, 99,7%, au Nigeria, 99,7%, en Libye, 99,1%, en Malaisie, 98,5% et au Mali, 98,8%. La prime de la honte est détenue par le Pakistan, où seulement 0,2% de la population n'exprime pas de préjugés à l'endroit des femmes, selon les critères de l'étude."
Bombardier, D. (7 mars 2020). L'égalité des sexes: les faits bruts. *Le Journal de Montréal*, en ligne, https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2020/03/07/legalite-des-sexes-les-faits-bruts?fbclid=IwAR0EcsTpZI-UrKgAvEvkWUVaeqQQiYjurPTeQKU_lZzIJe1bABwfDR9QiaM</footnote>
Islam would thus be a cause of the persistence of sexist stereotypes in the world and, therefore, a cause of the persistence of gender inequalities.

However, the apparent link between Islam and high levels of gender stereotypes can mask more important factors, starting with countries' level of development. Indeed, visual inspection of the UNDP data suggests that countries with the lowest levels of gender stereotypes (Andorra, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, etc.) are all highly developed and educated countries.

Moreover, as Denise Bombardier herself acknowledges, some non-Muslim countries, but where religious sentiment is strong, are also at the top of the list of the most sexist countries (e.g., Zimbabwe, Ghana, the Philippines, India). Therefore, it is possible that it is not Islam per se that is associated with strong gender stereotypes, but high levels of religiosity, regardless of the religion in question.

In this working paper, we explore whether and to what extent the following three variables explain the international variance of gender stereotypes: Islam, religiosity, and development. Our results, based on data from 75 countries accounting for 81 percent of the world population, suggest that religiosity and development are more important factors explaining the international variance of gender stereotypes than Islam.

## II. Material and Method

### 2.1 Dependent variable

#### Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI and GSNI2)

The GSNI of a given country corresponds to the percentage of its population with at least one (GSNI) or two (GSNI2) gender stereotype(s) out of seven items tested (e.g.: “Men make better political leaders than women do”; “University is more important for a man than for a woman”; “Men make better business executives than women do”). Overall, higher GSNI values indicate higher bias against gender equality.

The GSNI and GSNI2 are based on data from the *World Values Survey* wave 5 (2005–2009) and wave 6 (2010–2014). These data include 75 countries accounting for 81 percent of the world population.

Source of the data: Human Development Perspectives report (2020), *Tackling Social Norms: A game changer for gender inequalities*, United Nations Development Programme, Table A1, 20-21, http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hd_perspectives_gsni.pdf
## 2.2 Independent variables

### Muslim-majority countries

The 75 countries for which we had a GSNI and a GSNI2 were classified as either predominantly Muslim countries (1) or not (0).

Muslim-majority countries (1): N = 23; other countries (0): N = 52.

### Religiosity

To assess the level of religiosity of the 75 countries included in this study, we used the responses to item V9 of the *World Values Survey* wave 5 (2005-2009) and wave 6 (2010-2014). This item is as follows: “How religion is important in your life?” Responses range from 1 = “Very important” to 4 = “Not at all important”. We recoded the responses to this item to reverse its directionality. Therefore, in our study, responses range from 1 = “Not at all important” to 4 = “Very important”. Then, we averaged the responses by country. The average of each country corresponds to its level of religiosity.

Source of the data: *World Values Survey* wave 5 (2005–2009) and wave 6 (2010–2014), http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV6.jsp

### Human Development Index (HDI)

The UNDP describes the Human Development Index as follows: “The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and have a decent standard of living. The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three dimensions. The health dimension is assessed by life expectancy at birth, the education dimension is measured by mean of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years and more and expected years of schooling for children of school entering age. The standard of living dimension is measured by gross national income per capita.”

We used the HDI of 2010 for all countries, which corresponds to the midpoint of the GSNI and Religiosity data collection period (2005–2014).

Source of the data: United Nations Development Programme, http://hdr.undp.org/en/data#

*All data used in this study are in the Appendix of this paper.*

## 2.3 Analyses

We performed multiple linear regression analyses to assess the relation between GSNI and GSNI2, as dependent variables, and *Muslim majority*, *Religiosity*, and *HDI* as independent variables.
III. Results

**3.1 Descriptive statistics**

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1** – Pearson correlations between all the variables. N = 75 countries. All *p* < 0.01.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2** – Pearson correlations between *Religiosity* and (A) *GSNI* (N = 75 countries, *R* = 0.76, *p* < 0.001), (B) *GSNI2* (N = 75 countries, *R* = 0.76, *p* < 0.001). Grey surfaces: confidence intervals (95%).</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3** – GSNI of the non-Muslim countries (on the left, in brown; N = 52) and of the Muslim countries (on the right, in green; N = 23). The difference between the two groups of countries is significant (bilateral t-test: t(73)=5.09, *p* < 0.001).</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4** – GSNI2 of the non-Muslim countries (on the left, in brown; N = 52) and of the Muslim countries (on the right, in green; N = 23). The difference between the two groups of countries is significant (bilateral t-test: t(73)=7.53, *p* < 0.001).</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 5** – Religiosity of the non-Muslim countries (on the left, in brown; N = 52) and of the Muslim countries (on the right, in green; N = 23). The difference between the two groups of countries is significant (bilateral t-test: t(73)=5.99, *p* < 0.001).</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 6** – HDI (2010) of the non-Muslim countries (on the left, in brown; N = 52) and of the Muslim countries (on the right, in green; N = 23). The difference between the two groups of countries is significant (bilateral t-test: t(73)=3.32, *p* < 0.01).</figcaption></figure>

## 3.2 Analytical statistics

<caption>**Table 1** – Multiple linear regression analysis, dependent variable: GSNI; independent variables: Muslim majority, Religiosity, and HDI. N = 75 countries.</caption>

Call:
lm(formula = GSNI ~ Muslim_majority + Religiosity + HDI_2010,
        data = Data_Gender)

Residuals:
Min      1Q     Median      3Q       Max
-35.164  -6.802  2.288      5.797  24.767

Coefficients:
              Estimate   Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept)    75.375    15.409    4.892  6.02e-06 ***
Muslim_majority  4.619     3.563    1.296  0.199e-06 ***
Religiosity    13.537     2.814    4.811  8.17e-06 ***
HDI_2010      -48.152    12.395  -3.885  0.000227 ***

---
Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1

Residual standard error: 11.65 on 71 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-squared: 0.6577, Adjusted R-squared: 0.6432
F-statistic: 45.47 on 3 and 71 DF, p-value: < 2.2e-16
<caption>**Table 2** – Multiple linear regression analysis, dependent variable: GSNI2; independent variables: *Muslim majority*, *Religiosity*, and *HDI*. N = 75 countries.</caption>

Call:

lm(formula = GSNI_2 ~ Muslim_majority + Religiosity + HDI_2010,
  data = Data_Gender)

Residuals:

Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
-51.107 -10.129 -0.444 10.259 26.803

Coefficients:

Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept)   61.25    19.11   3.205 0.002025 **
Muslim_majority  19.22     4.42   4.349 4.5e-05 ***
Religiosity    13.67     3.49   3.918 0.000203 ***
HDI_2010      -63.12    15.37  -4.106 0.000106 ***

---
Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1

Residual standard error: 14.45 on 71 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-squared: 0.716, Adjusted R-squared: 0.704
F-statistic: 59.66 on 3 and 71 DF, p-value: < 2.2e-16

IV. Discussion

Results of this study show that Islam per se is not the main cause of the persistence of gender stereotypes in the world. Among the 75 countries included in this study, the prevalence of gender stereotypes is more strongly correlated with levels of religiosity and development than with Muslim-majority countries versus other countries. Moreover, regression analyses show that religiosity and development are factors explaining the international variance of both GSNI and GSNI2, while Muslim majority is a significant additional factor in the explanation of the international variance of GSNI2 only (i.e., the percentage of the population with at least two gender stereotypes out of seven).

There are undoubtedly many other factors associated with the persistence of gender stereotypes
around the world. But low levels of development – hence, low levels of education – and strong
religiosity seem to play an important role in this regard.

Appendix: Data used in this study

<table>
   <thead>
    <tr>
     <td>
      Country
     </td>
     <td>
      GSNI
     </td>
     <td>
      GSNI_2
     </td>
     <td>
      Muslim_majority
     </td>
     <td>
      HDI_2010
     </td>
     <td>
      Religiosity
     </td>
    </tr>
   </thead>
   <tbody>
    <tr>
     <td>
      Algeria
     </td>
     <td>
      97.83
     </td>
     <td>
      87.00
     </td>
     <td>
      1
     </td>
     <td>
      0.730
     </td>
     <td>
      3.88
     </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
     <td>
      Andorra
     </td>
     <td>
      27.01
     </td>
     <td>
      7.43
     </td>
     <td>
      0
     </td>
     <td>
      0.828
     </td>
     <td>
      1.97
     </td>
    </tr>
   </tbody>
  </table>
<table><tr><td>Argentina</td><td>75.41</td><td>42.49</td><td>0</td><td>0.818</td><td>2.55</td></tr><tr><td>Armenia</td><td>94.11</td><td>81.28</td><td>0</td><td>0.729</td><td>3.47</td></tr><tr><td>Australia</td><td>46.24</td><td>23.00</td><td>0</td><td>0.866</td><td>2.18</td></tr><tr><td>Azerbaijan</td><td>99.14</td><td>93.82</td><td>1</td><td>0.732</td><td>2.96</td></tr><tr><td>Belarus</td><td>90.37</td><td>71.70</td><td>0</td><td>0.792</td><td>2.47</td></tr><tr><td>Brazil</td><td>89.50</td><td>52.39</td><td>0</td><td>0.726</td><td>3.40</td></tr><tr><td>Bulgaria</td><td>76.84</td><td>44.40</td><td>0</td><td>0.779</td><td>2.52</td></tr><tr><td>Burkina Faso</td><td>98.38</td><td>85.86</td><td>1</td><td>0.375</td><td>3.81</td></tr><tr><td>Canada</td><td>51.53</td><td>23.26</td><td>0</td><td>0.895</td><td>2.82</td></tr><tr><td>Chile</td><td>74.40</td><td>42.20</td><td>0</td><td>0.800</td><td>2.70</td></tr><tr><td>China</td><td>88.27</td><td>64.42</td><td>0</td><td>0.702</td><td>1.62</td></tr><tr><td>Colombia</td><td>91.40</td><td>57.21</td><td>0</td><td>0.729</td><td>3.35</td></tr><tr><td>Cyprus</td><td>81.05</td><td>49.44</td><td>0</td><td>0.850</td><td>3.21</td></tr><tr><td>Ecuador</td><td>93.34</td><td>58.90</td><td>0</td><td>0.716</td><td>3.52</td></tr><tr><td>Estonia</td><td>76.34</td><td>51.19</td><td>0</td><td>0.844</td><td>1.98</td></tr><tr><td>Ethiopia</td><td>85.27</td><td>35.14</td><td>0</td><td>0.412</td><td>3.73</td></tr><tr><td>Finland</td><td>51.16</td><td>22.67</td><td>0</td><td>0.903</td><td>2.48</td></tr><tr><td>France</td><td>56.00</td><td>26.81</td><td>0</td><td>0.872</td><td>2.28</td></tr><tr><td>Georgia</td><td>94.09</td><td>77.12</td><td>0</td><td>0.732</td><td>3.81</td></tr><tr><td>Germany</td><td>62.60</td><td>33.07</td><td>0</td><td>0.920</td><td>2.05</td></tr><tr><td>Ghana</td><td>99.16</td><td>92.69</td><td>0</td><td>0.554</td><td>3.91</td></tr><tr><td>Haiti</td><td>98.91</td><td>92.82</td><td>0</td><td>0.467</td><td>2.97</td></tr><tr><td>Hungary</td><td>65.89</td><td>40.36</td><td>0</td><td>0.826</td><td>2.22</td></tr><tr><td>India</td><td>98.28</td><td>83.25</td><td>0</td><td>0.581</td><td>3.59</td></tr><tr><td>Indonesia</td><td>97.44</td><td>80.36</td><td>1</td><td>0.666</td><td>3.93</td></tr><tr><td>Iran</td><td>98.54</td><td>92.49</td><td>1</td><td>0.756</td><td>3.72</td></tr><tr><td>Iraq</td><td>97.50</td><td>90.58</td><td>1</td><td>0.652</td><td>3.82</td></tr><tr><td>Japan</td><td>68.81</td><td>41.67</td><td>0</td><td>0.885</td><td>1.88</td></tr><tr><td>Jordan</td><td>99.33</td><td>95.67</td><td>1</td><td>0.728</td><td>3.93</td></tr><tr><td>Kazakhstan</td><td>96.22</td><td>79.02</td><td>1</td><td>0.764</td><td>2.65</td></tr><tr><td>Korea (Republic of)</td><td>87.07</td><td>62.91</td><td>0</td><td>0.882</td><td>2.64</td></tr><tr><td>Kuwait</td><td>97.77</td><td>91.56</td><td>1</td><td>0.712</td><td>3.87</td></tr><tr><td>Kyrgyzstan</td><td>96.73</td><td>84.87</td><td>1</td><td>0.636</td><td>3.20</td></tr></table>
<table><tr><td>Lebanon</td><td>96.08</td><td>82.33</td><td>1</td><td>0.751</td><td>3.25</td></tr><tr><td>Libya</td><td>99.13</td><td>92.89</td><td>1</td><td>0.757</td><td>3.96</td></tr><tr><td>Malaysia</td><td>98.54</td><td>88.38</td><td>1</td><td>0.773</td><td>3.81</td></tr><tr><td>Mali</td><td>98.82</td><td>93.36</td><td>1</td><td>0.403</td><td>3.90</td></tr><tr><td>Mexico</td><td>87.70</td><td>51.00</td><td>0</td><td>0.739</td><td>3.37</td></tr><tr><td>Moldova</td><td>90.06</td><td>67.21</td><td>0</td><td>0.681</td><td>2.98</td></tr><tr><td>Morocco</td><td>96.25</td><td>80.58</td><td>1</td><td>0.618</td><td>3.88</td></tr><tr><td>Netherlands</td><td>39.75</td><td>15.88</td><td>0</td><td>0.911</td><td>1.92</td></tr><tr><td>New Zealand</td><td>46.14</td><td>21.28</td><td>0</td><td>0.899</td><td>2.25</td></tr><tr><td>Nigeria</td><td>99.73</td><td>94.99</td><td>1</td><td>0.484</td><td>3.87</td></tr><tr><td>Norway</td><td>41.27</td><td>16.00</td><td>0</td><td>0.942</td><td>2.17</td></tr><tr><td>Pakistan</td><td>99.81</td><td>98.07</td><td>1</td><td>0.524</td><td>3.87</td></tr><tr><td>Palestine</td><td>98.00</td><td>92.30</td><td>1</td><td>0.671</td><td>3.84</td></tr><tr><td>Peru</td><td>87.96</td><td>49.99</td><td>0</td><td>0.721</td><td>3.29</td></tr><tr><td>Philippines</td><td>98.87</td><td>86.80</td><td>0</td><td>0.672</td><td>3.84</td></tr><tr><td>Poland</td><td>79.75</td><td>47.31</td><td>0</td><td>0.835</td><td>3.18</td></tr><tr><td>Qatar</td><td>99.73</td><td>94.90</td><td>1</td><td>0.834</td><td>3.99</td></tr><tr><td>Romania</td><td>85.50</td><td>60.84</td><td>0</td><td>0.797</td><td>3.34</td></tr><tr><td>Russian Federation</td><td>86.83</td><td>68.56</td><td>0</td><td>0.780</td><td>2.42</td></tr><tr><td>Rwanda</td><td>99.15</td><td>89.39</td><td>0</td><td>0.488</td><td>3.09</td></tr><tr><td>Serbia</td><td>82.62</td><td>48.61</td><td>0</td><td>0.762</td><td>2.86</td></tr><tr><td>Singapore</td><td>92.34</td><td>73.20</td><td>0</td><td>0.909</td><td>3.11</td></tr><tr><td>Slovenia</td><td>59.21</td><td>28.25</td><td>0</td><td>0.881</td><td>2.18</td></tr><tr><td>South Africa</td><td>96.32</td><td>80.90</td><td>0</td><td>0.662</td><td>3.38</td></tr><tr><td>Spain</td><td>50.50</td><td>25.16</td><td>0</td><td>0.865</td><td>2.06</td></tr><tr><td>Sweden</td><td>30.01</td><td>10.75</td><td>0</td><td>0.906</td><td>1.99</td></tr><tr><td>Switzerland</td><td>56.03</td><td>26.94</td><td>0</td><td>0.932</td><td>2.41</td></tr><tr><td>Thailand</td><td>95.47</td><td>74.50</td><td>0</td><td>0.721</td><td>3.45</td></tr><tr><td>Trinidad and Tobago</td><td>85.99</td><td>51.25</td><td>0</td><td>0.788</td><td>3.69</td></tr><tr><td>Tunisia</td><td>96.35</td><td>84.07</td><td>1</td><td>0.717</td><td>3.94</td></tr><tr><td>Turkey</td><td>96.52</td><td>85.70</td><td>1</td><td>0.743</td><td>3.55</td></tr><tr><td>Ukraine</td><td>86.53</td><td>65.40</td><td>0</td><td>0.732</td><td>2.78</td></tr><tr><td>UK</td><td>54.60</td><td>25.50</td><td>0</td><td>0.905</td><td>2.38</td></tr></table>
<table><tr><td>United States</td><td>57.31</td><td>30.07</td><td>0</td><td>0.911</td><td>2.98</td></tr><tr><td>Uruguay</td><td>74.60</td><td>36.70</td><td>0</td><td>0.774</td><td>2.28</td></tr><tr><td>Uzbekistan</td><td>97.93</td><td>87.73</td><td>1</td><td>0.665</td><td>3.02</td></tr><tr><td>Viet Nam</td><td>92.89</td><td>69.17</td><td>0</td><td>0.653</td><td>2.21</td></tr><tr><td>Yemen</td><td>97.80</td><td>92.10</td><td>1</td><td>0.499</td><td>3.94</td></tr><tr><td>Zambia</td><td>96.84</td><td>80.56</td><td>0</td><td>0.531</td><td>3.71</td></tr><tr><td>Zimbabwe</td><td>99.52</td><td>84.78</td><td>0</td><td>0.472</td><td>3.79</td></tr></table>