PRINCESS Adelah bint Abdullah, the daughter of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, stressed at the Eastern Province Businesswomen’s Forum held in Dammam earlier this year that “Unemployment for (Saudi) women is on the rise even though job opportunities for women are increasing.”
The theme of the conference — Saudi woman between economics and social reality — could not have been more apt. For while the likes of Lubna Al-Olayan, Nabila Tunisi, Dr. Nahed Taher, Samra Al-Kuwaiz, Nadia Al-Dossary, Sheikha S. Al-Sudairy and a host of others are seemingly succeeding in “a man’s world” because of special circumstances, the lot of the ordinary Saudi women who wish to enter or participate in business or finance, remains frustratingly obfuscated.
The barriers to entry are so banal and surreal that they beg disbelief especially at the turn of the 21st century and the new millennium. Speeding up reforms on gender equality and empowerment, especially in the workplace, which according to the princess, would be a major contributor to achieving national development goals.
Saudi women in the workplace in reality is defined by the statistics of despair and lost opportunity costs. According to the Central Department of Statistics in Riyadh, the population of the Kingdom totaled 23.6 million under the 2006 census. Of this, some 45 percent are women, although this percentage has increased over the last two years and is nearer half the population. Some 55 percent to 60 percent of the Saudi population is under the age of 25, making the Kingdom’s population one of the youngest in the world.
However, out of a total of five million Saudi women of working age, only about half a million or just under 10 percent are in actual employment. These figures put the Kingdom with the lowest percentage of women in the workforce.
This, despite the fact, that some 58 percent of Saudi university students are women, and Saudi women very often outperform their male counterparts in education, health care, technology and financial services, given the opportunity on a level playing field.
Al-Jawhara Al-Angari, vice chairman of the National Society for Human Rights, is adamant that discrimination against women in leadership and decision-making positions in Saudi and Arab society is a result of culture and traditions rather than the teachings of Islam.
Unfortunately, the private sector similarly pays lip service to gender equality in the workplace. “The private sector in the Arab world,” she told the same business forum in Dammam, “is very cautious about allowing women into leadership positions — except of course in those firms owned by women. Even in areas where women are employed extensively, such as the education and health fields, Saudi women don’t fill decision-making positions.”
Government policies such as those aimed at eradicating female illiteracy, opening up elections for positions on the boards of various chambers of commerce in Saudi Arabia; and the imminent presentation of an “anti-harassment of women in the workplace law” by the Shoura Council, have been welcomed by women groups.
However, very often government policies on gender equality and empowerment are not implemented or enforced, and very often are obfuscated by the very male bureaucrats charged with their implementation.
Some Saudi businessmen however do recognize the current plight of Saudi women in the work force. Saleh Al-Turki, chairman of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), in a speech in January this year on the importance of working women in Islamic history, warned that for the Kingdom like any other market to be able to achieve economic competitiveness, employment should be based on qualifications and not on gender.
“In order to achieve competitiveness of economy, we need a highly qualified labor force to increase productivity and therefore increase the general income of the country. The Labor Ministry’s plan demonstrated that those who have the best qualifications should be hired. Jobs are not only for men,” he stressed.
Perhaps more disturbingly, a recent survey commissioned by the Khadija bint Khuwailid Center at the JCCI, and conducted by IPSOS, a regional research company, concluded that 78 percent of the Saudi female work force are unemployed compared with 21 percent of the male work force. The survey also revealed that 45 percent of the respondents believed that there are no hurdles that hinder the participation of women in the job market. The center now also offers advice to Saudi women about their legal rights in the workplace and investment under Saudi law and Islam.
Another major gender-bias anomaly is the Human Resource Development Fund — 93 percent of its programs are allocated to men and just seven percent are for women.
Perhaps the issue which concerns Saudi businesswomen the most is that of the guardianship or “wakeel”. Under Saudi law, for a woman to start, own or run a business, she needs the consent of her legal male guardian, or “mahram”, who must be a relative by blood or marriage, or in some cases where legal custody is being disputed, a court judge. In many Muslim countries, women can own and run a business. So why is Saudi Arabia the exception?
In reality, a male manager must process the paperwork needed for a woman to operate her company in Saudi Arabia. In many cases, men abuse the power of attorney given by their womenfolk. Not surprisingly, many Saudi women prefer to keep their money in their bank accounts.
Segregation of the sexes in Saudi society also cuts women off from the most well-established leaders in the business community. It makes it difficult for women-owned businesses to enter into affiliations with other firms and to cooperate as contractors on major projects.
However, given the constraints of Saudi women participating unencumbered in the workplace, the home-based business and women-only business sectors have taken off over the last few years and even encouraged by the government. Recently, for instance, Luthan Trading Company launched the first women-only hotel, the Luthan Hotel & Spa in the Kingdom. In April 2008, the Abha Chamber of Commerce and Industry even launched a training program for businesswomen titled “How You Can Start a Business from Home”.
While some businesswomen welcome these developments, others see such initiatives as mechanisms toward the further marginalization of Saudi women in the workplace.
The fundamental flaw of the home-based business initiative is that it suits the needs of only a small section of Saudi would-be businesswomen. At best it is a micro-finance niche which is structurally inadequate to meet the capabilities and demands of thousands of Saudi women professionals and entrepreneurs. Any suggestion that home-based businesses could be the bedrock of the contribution of Saudi women to GDP or development in modern-day Saudi Arabia, betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of gender equality and empowerment, and the role of women in economic development.