Arab Human Development Report 2016

ace, nationality, or language. The second focuses
on questions about the morality of various religions
and whether all should be taught in schools.
The region’s gap with the rest of the world in
tolerance is large, 26 percent in social areas and
24 percent in religious areas (figure 2.14; table 2.3).
Egypt and Lebanon, more religiously diverse countries,
score above the global average, suggesting
that diversity fosters tolerance. In the averages
across countries and populations, youth do not
appear to be more tolerant than the elderly and are,
in fact, less religiously tolerant (table 2.3). Yet, there
is a clearly positive and significant education effect,
which is even larger in the region than in the rest of
the world. It is one of the most beneficial aspects
of education found so far. Some cohorts are espe-
cially tolerant, perhaps because defining historical
moments occurred during their formative stage, for
example, older Jordanian and Tunisian individuals
and younger and more well-educated Iraqis and
Palestinians. There has been no discernible progress
on the values of social and religious tolerance since
2000 in the WVS data, including among youth.
This wide regional deficit and lack of progress
on values of tolerance are worrying for the future
of democracy in the region. Social and religious
tolerance is positively correlated with self-expression
and life satisfaction, and religious tolerance
is negatively correlated with piety and obedience
(table 2.3). Tolerance also correlates positively
with support for democracy and negatively with
support for political Islam.