Muslim women's satisfaction highest in the world

"Dahlia Mogahed, who overseas Gallup's research on Muslim opinion, has made some stark observations about that poll. There are, she notes, many Muslim countries where men and women alike are fed up with life. But of the ten places with the highest correlation between being female and (relatively) satisfied, nine are mainly Muslim: Afghanistan, Iran, Egypt, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh, Palestine, Jordon and Morocco. Ms. Mogahed says this reflects the travails of being a Muslim man as much as any blessing of being female. In traditional lands, where men expect to be breadwinners, many suffer the trauma of being jobless or doing hard, ill-paid work. Another factor, she thinks, is that one big source of female and child poverty in the West – single motherhood – hardly exists in Muslim societies."

- The Economist, July 14th 2007, page 62