Quality of Life among Kuwaiti Women Living with Chronic Neuromuscular Conditions

The status of women varies among societies, however, for women with disabilities there are additional challenges. In conservative societies where the status of women is relatively low, it can have a particularly negative impact, compounding the challenges in their daily lives. Worldwide industrialization and globalization is forging the current era, however, for Arab women in conservative societies, their experience of such is still in its formative stage. For instance, in the industrial sector, Arab women have some of the lowest participation rates in the world (UNICEF 2011). Moreover, adult literacy levels among Arab men continues to be greater than that of women. According to UNICEF (2011), illiteracy among women is especially over-represented among older women in the region. More recently there has been a significant increase in the number of Arab women participating in all levels of education in the Middle East. In this regard, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Tunisia, Lebanon and Jordan are pioneers in setting up educational systems that integrate women. However, these countries have had varying degrees of success at integrating women into the economy in order to reap the benefits of this investment (Hausmann et al. 2011). In fact, among some of the oilApplied Research Quality Life DOI 10.1007/s11482-012-9189-3