Social Development Report 2: Inequality, Autonomy and Change in the Arab Region

This report examines how inequality and personal autonomy are likely to impact the broad “political settlement” in the Arab region overtime. Chapter one provides a historical overview of the political economy of the region. Chapter two focuses on equality of opportunity at the macro-level in relation to access to income, education and employment. Chapter three moves to the micro level by focusing on personal autonomy. It defines and measures autonomy in the Arab world and compares it to values held in the rest of the world, and among different countries and socio-economic groups. It additionally demonstrates the existence of a perceived autonomy gap in the Arab region and investigates its distribution among countries and groups and analyses the reasons behind this gap. It finally, examines the implications of this gap to the attitude towards various forms of inequality in the region.

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