Globally, women's employment has tended to increase with the demographic transition and the accompanying social and economic modernization. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region stands out because despite falling fertility rates and significant human development, women's employment there is the lowest in the world. However, the relative role that structural forces versus women's own human capital and preferences play in this are unknown. In order to understand prospects for women's employment in the region, political, economic, and cultural structures must be disentangled. Research approaches must also distinguish between desirable employment for women and exploitative employment (e.g. as is seen in some export-oriented manufacturing jobs). This entails moving beyond Western theories of women's employment which tend to view it as universally beneficial and looking at the specific benefits and costs of particular types of employment for women in the Middle East. In order to understand prospects for women's increased employment, research must move beyond documenting trends in overall labor force participation rates; the structural and personal factors shaping individual attitudes towards women's employment should be explored. Do individual views on women's employment correspond with their low labor force representation, or do individuals in the Middle East view women's employment as desirable, but face structural obstaclesr This paper examines men's and women's attitudes towards employment across a selection of culturally, economically, and politically diverse nations in the Middle East (Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey) using the 2000 and 2005 waves of the World Values Survey. Hierarchical linear modeling is used to examine the national factors and personal socio-demographic characteristics that shape attitudes towards women's employment in the Middle East. Pertinent national factors include oil wealth, unemployment rates, women's tertiary gross enrollment, and the prevalence of individual freedoms and civil rights. Individual characteristics including age, gender, marital status, employment, education, and religiosity also shape attitudes towards women's employment.