In studies on the influence of contextual factors on women’s employment in the MiddleEast, two myths figure regularly, which both seems to be related to the disentanglementof micro and macro levels. By applying a more comprehensive view and using multilevelmodels, we provide a more nuanced view of the relationship between the contextual andindividual level regarding women’s non-agricultural employment in Egypt and Jordan.First, we show that large uniform contextual processes such as globalization andmodernization are not satisfying in explaining women’s employment. The processes aremore complex. Egypt and Jordan seem to modernize rather linearly, but if we look moreclosely at the processes and also take individual-level data in to account, women’semployment does not show the same pattern. Globalization and modernization are nopanacea to gender equality. Second, we focus on the myth of ‘micro-level stability’ andhave shown that the effect of individual and household factors has changed over time.The influence of education, the most important explanatory factor of women’s non-agricultural employment, has a declining effect. Furthermore, having (young) childrenseems to become a less restricting influence on women’s employment