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The DSG Gender and Public Policy program functions on the principle that gender is a crucial factor in the structuring of society and focuses on the dynamics of gender by executing and disseminating research that illuminates economic, political and social policy issues affecting women. The program produces reports, policy briefs and working papers on a variety of public policy issues which include but are not limited to the following: gender equality in health, education, economic opportunity, political participation, leadership, power, and negotiation. In addition, the program hosts multi-year research initiatives that involve collaborations between research teams regionally and internationally and contribute to building DSG’s position as the “regional” academic partner on global gender issues.

Intersections of Gender and Culture in Negotiation Research Initiative

In 2010 the program continued to develop and expand its major research initiative entitled “Intersections of Gender and Culture in Negotiation.” Through research grants awarded by the Emirates Foundation and Harvard University’s Kuwait Initiative, the program was able to build on the scope and depth of research activities. Today, the research initiative has three main foci:

1. Gender and Cultural Frameswitching in Negotiation in the GCC which uses a negotiation lens to explore the gendered school-to-work transitions among young men and women in the GCC. The research has drawn on gender in negotiation theory and cultural psychology theory to explore gender inequality in organizations in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. Read More

   Research on youth unemployment in the Arab world has generally taken a ‘macro’ approach to analyzing trends in education and work. Most of these studies use labor force surveys and adopt traditional explanations, such as the ‘skills mismatch’ argument, to explain the low percentage of national graduates in the labor force. However, policy prescriptions to address the unemployment issue- from nationalization regulations to entrepreneurship programs- have proven to be of limited success in the UAE and many of its neighboring Gulf Cooperative Council countries. Moreover, these policy prescriptions are rarely gender sensitive and do not adequately address the unique challenges that young Emirati women face as they transition into a work environment.

   Policies focusing on youth inclusion are likely to benefit if they reflected a better understanding of the ‘micro’ dynamics that underlie the school-to-work transition in the GCC, such as how young people are motivated and what sort of organizational conditions are needed to foster their successful entry into a work environment. Rather than presupposing that young national graduates are inherently deficient in skills or ill-suited to private sector employment, we start our investigation by dissecting the nature of the interaction between young graduates and employers through a series of studies on job negotiations in the GCC. In particular, we hope to address the gender gap in economic participation through a better understanding of the ways in which young women pursue resources and opportunities in organizations in the GCC.

   This research project draws on gender in negotiation theory, which has been used to understand gender inequality in organizations, and cultural psychology theory, which takes into account the cultural appropriateness of our theoretical framework and methods. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, our cumulative findings will demonstrate how young men and women differ on a variety of questions relevant to the school-to-work transition, including the following: What matters to university gradates in a job negotiation situation? How are they perceived if they negotiate for training opportunities or salary adjustments? What information do graduates use in a negotiation situation? How does choice of language affect the negotiation outcome? How does segregation affect negotiator efficacy and negotiation outcomes?

2. Cultural Focal Concerns in Negotiation which is a research project forming a part of a large multidisciplinary international and pan-Arab research effort covering six countries and aims to construct a conceptual dynamic multilevel model of culture and negotiation in Middle East. In particular, the project explores the relevant intra- and inter-cultural dimensions that are crucial for understanding gender, culture, and negotiation in the Middle East.
3. Feminist Orientalism is a research project which empirically tests the premise of post-colonial feminist theory through a series of laboratory studies in the US and the Arab world.