Sultan to as a sultanate ( "). The term is distinct from king ( "), despite both referring to a sovereign ruler. The use of "sultan" is restricted to Muslim countries, where the title carries religious significance, contrasting the more secular "king", which is used in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries. A feminine form of "sultan", used by Westerners, is Sultana or Sultanah and this title has been used legally for some (not all) Muslim women monarchs and sultan's mothers and chief consorts. However, Turkish and Ottoman Turkish also uses "sultan" for imperial lady, as Turkish grammar—which is influenced by Persian
Female labor force in the Muslim world in the Middle East are unemployed. In both these regions, male unemployment was only 10%. Only Sub-Saharan Africa had a male unemployment rate as high as 10%. Seven percent of women are unemployed in Southeast Asia as compared to 6% of men. South Asia, which contains a few majority Muslim nations such as Bangladesh, has a higher female unemployment rate, 6%, than a male unemployment rate which is 5%. However, non-Muslim regions of the world also demonstrate disproportional employment figures. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the female unemployment rate was 11% in 2006 while the male unemployment rate was