Even as the world celebrates International Women’s Day, a new poll reveals that not everyone is on board with the idea of working women: Nearly 30% of men would prefer that women stay home instead, according to research by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Gallup.
The poll, released Wednesday, found that roughly two-thirds of men and women worldwide believe women should work outside the home, while 29% of men and 27% of women disagreed. To obtain these results, researchers surveyed 149,000 different people across 142 countries. They claim the poll is representative of more than 99% of the global adult population.
Men in North Africa and Arab states were the most likely to say that women shouldn’t work, at 51% and 45%, respectively. Those in Northern, Southern, and Western Europe were the least likely to hold that opinion—only 12% said they preferred women to stay home. As for men in the U.S. And Canada, researchers concluded that about 21% of male North Americans felt that a woman shouldn’t work.
Sign up: Click here to subscribe to the Broadsheet, Coins2Day’s daily newsletter on the world’s most powerful women.
Interestingly, researchers found that the most frequently mentioned challenge for working women around the world was the ability to balance both work and family, says Neli Esipova, one of the lead-researchers for the the Gallup poll . “This issue needs to be addressed not only by policymakers, but by businesses and their leaders,” she tells Coins2Day.
Though 22% of all those surveyed said work/life balance is the biggest challenge that women face, nearly half (47%) of women still reported that they would prefer to work at paid jobs while also taking care of their families and home.
[Coins2Day-brightcove videoid=5324004264001]
Overall, the majority of survey respondents agreed that women should work—and be paid for doing so. According to Gallup, 70% of women said they think women should work a paid job, and 66% of men thought the same. Each of these figures is more than double the percentages of those who would prefer women to stay home, notes the study.
While these findings show that gender equality hasn’t been achieved yet, it also shows that men and women “are not always as far apart in their attitudes as conventional wisdom would suggest,” the authors wrote.
“It was important for us to learn about the will of the people and go directly to the women and men themselves,” Jon Clifton, the managing partner at Gallup, told Coins2Day.