Maysa Jabout writes: For Arab women, hard-won progress in education has not earned them the economic progress they deserve. Although young women seek and succeed in tertiary education at higher rates than young men, they are far less likely to enter and remain in the job market. Understanding and tackling the barriers that hinder women from working would unlock Arab women’s potential and yield significant social and economic benefits to every Arab State.
Echoing the trend observed globally, women in the Arab world outnumber men in pursuing university degrees.. This ratio of men to women pursuing college degress is favorable to women in Qatar (676 percent) and Tunisia (159 percent).
Yet three out of four women remain outside the labor force.
Young women entering the labor market are disadvantaged in comparison to their male peers. Of female youth actively seeking work, women are twice as likely as men not to find a job.
And, when an economic crisis occurs, women are the most vulnerable workers. For example, At this rate, it would take 150 years to reach today’s world female labor force participation average.
Success in education has not resulted in new and sustained jobs for women in Arab states.
As the graphs below demonstrate, a comparison of the percentage of women employed regionally between 2000 and 2012 sees very little progress resulting from a higher educated female population. Despite progress in countries like Qatar and Bahrain, where women are increasingly part of the labor force, almost all MENA countries are well below the global average.
Figure 1. MENA women’s participation in the workforce and gross tertiary enrollment rates, 2000 & 2012
*Click on graph to enlarge
*Click on graph to enlarge
Source: Calculations by the author based on data from the ILO and the UNESCO Institute of Statistics.
The reasons behind why educated Arab women are not working are not yet fully understood. Understanding these barriers would have to consider the low level of jobs available in the Arab world, especially for young people. The Arab world is home to the largest number of unemployed youth in the world. Economic growth is simply not generating enough jobs for everyone.
Women, however, do not seem to have the support they need to compete for the few jobs that are available despite their high education levels and desire to work. In a 2010 World Bank survey of Jordanian female college graduates, 92 percent said they planned to work after graduation and 76 percent expected to do so full time.
For the few Arab women who choose the more challenging but potentially more rewarding path of entrepreneurship, in addition to the same challenges their male peers encounter, they struggle against family and personal laws that limit their ability to work independently or gain access to capital.
In the United Arab Emirates an equal number of women and men working would raise the country’s GDP by 12 percent; in Egypt, the same achievement would raise GDP by 34 percent.
Higher access to education without equal access to jobs is a lost opportunity for women, their families and their nations. Education alone does not fully protect or prepare women in the Arab world for gaining economic equality. Investment in education must be matched with national efforts to address all barriers to Arab women entering the job market and staying in it.