Jordan Times
Friday, September 2, 2005
Unemployment among women
falls by 20.2% over a decade
By Thomas Gringer Jakobsen and Henrik El-Kher
AMMAN — Jordanian women are closing in on men
when it comes to participation in the labour market.
In little more than a decade, unemployment among women has plunged 20.2
percentage points — from 36.7 to 16.5 per cent, according to official figures
from the Department of Statistics (DoS).
Male unemployment dropped 5 per cent during the same period.
Just last year, the percentage of unemployed women dropped 4.3 points to the
present low of 16.5, while unemployment among men currently stands at 11.8 per
cent.
Women are increasingly seeking employment in the private sector. According to
DoS, between 1994 and 2004 the number of women working in the private sector has
almost quadrupled to more than 80,000.
More than half the number of working women are employed in the fields of health,
education and social work.
According to Ibrahim Saif, an economist at the University of Jordan's Centre for
Strategic Studies, there are several reasons for this development.
“Women have become better educated. This means that they become generally more
aware of their opportunities in society, and that they can apply for more jobs,”
he told The Jordan Times.
DoS figures show a rise in the percentage of females attending university. In
1994, 44 per cent of university students were women, whereas 2004 data shows
that half of university students are female.
Saif also points to the economic situation in the Kingdom. Living expenses have
increased during the last 10 years, which means that women have become a vital
work resource for many families.
This is also the conception of Ahmad Sadi, head of the research department at
the Amman Chamber of Industries.
“If you don't need to work, you are not encouraged. This is the most important
thing. Right now, women simply have to work because of the higher prices in
Jordan,” he said.
According to Saif, the establishment of the Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZs) is
also helping women who are seeking jobs.
A Ministry of Labour employee confirmed that factories operating in the QIZs
offer job opportunities for many women who would not otherwise be able to work.
Five-week vocational training courses qualify residents of remote areas to work
in small-scale industries where they may sew clothes or produce chalks for
writing.
“In rural areas women can only work if they have job opportunities close to
their homes,” said the employee, who declined to be named.
“This is largely because of tradition — you simply can't tell someone from Maan
that his daughter should work in Sahab and only come home during the weekends,”
the employee added.
Ons Saket, president of the General Federation for Jordanian Women, believes
that government policies also played a role in changing the role of women in the
Kingdom.
“There has been good dialogue between NGOs and the government, and many of the
laws that discriminated against women have been changed,” said Saket, who also
attributed the increase in women's employment to a general cultural change that
has taken place in Jordan.
“Before, our community was not aware of the importance of employing women, and
therefore women were usually not active in that part of the society. This has
changed for the better, but we still need to do a lot of work, since cultural
change does not happen overnight,” she said.
Saket's opinion is echoed in a report published last year by the United Nations
Development Fund for Women. The report concludes that it is still a struggle for
women to find a place in the labour market.
“Females face clear obstacles in finding work... including unsuitability of
their educational levels, insufficient wages, distance of work from their
residences and the preference of employers to hire males,” the report states.