Global study finds huge cultural divides in attitudes toward women.

• Author: Ayres, Ed
• Position: ENVIRONMENTAL Intelligence

An extraordinary, 81-country survey of attitudes has found that the role of gender varies enormously across different cultures--a finding that could have important implications for the future of international relations on a range of fronts, from the problems of overpopulation and poverty to the specter of rising terrorism. Compiling survey responses by 200,000 people in countries that account for 85 percent of the world's population, the World Values Survey found not only that social attitudes vary widely but also that they are changing rapidly.

On the role of gender, respondents were asked: When jobs are scarce, do men have more rights than women to a job? The percentages of respondents saying "yes" ranged from 2 percent in Sweden to 90 percent in Egypt (where the other 10 percent expressed no opinion, and zero percent said "no"). In the United States, 10 percent said yes. In general, the populations expressing the...