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Education - Lebanon

Of 2,750 respondents, 650 were under 25 years of age: 465 women and 185 men.

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  • Large majorities of both women and men hope to attend college.
  • The differences between the educational aspirations of women and men under 25 are not statistically significant.
  • Among those satisfied with their current level of education (n=135), about one third had completed primary school, three in ten had completed Intermediate school, and one quarter had completed secondary school. Most of the remainder had completed a university degree (Figure 1).

Women are significantly more likely than men to perceive obstacles to higher education (Figure 2).

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  • Most of the women and men in the survey reported no obstacles to meeting their educational aspirations. However, financial reasons were the barriers that were most commonly cited, by both Lebanese women and men. Fewer women and men cited family norms or obligations as obstacles; nevertheless, women were more likely than men to give norms or obligations as reasons they might not fulfill their educational aspirations.
  • Four in ten women between the ages of 35 and 55 have completed secondary school education, and among women 56 and older, only 15% have done so (Figure 3).
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  • Despite the clear trend toward increasing educational attainment, a full 45% of young adult Lebanese women have less than a secondary school education. Business administration is the top field of study for 15% of the women and 20% of the men 25 or younger.
  • Of the top 3 fields of study among young Lebanese women, two are traditionally male-dominated fields: business administration and the hard sciences, followed by art and design. Business administration is by far the most popular potential field of study among both women and men.
  • Though young women are interested in breaking into traditionally male fields of study, career plans seem slower to change. The most common career plans among women under 25 who plan to work are teaching, retail employment, and cosmetology, while young men are most likely to strive for careers in engineering (Table 1). However, young women reported interest in virtually all career fields, from medicine and education to skilled labor and the armed forces, signaling the need for a wide variety of resources and opportunities to assist them in meeting their career goals.