JEDDAH, 8 August 2005 — The Saudi government is planning on implementing new regulations that would increase women’s participation in developing the country’s economy either by working or investing. It will conduct a study on the current regulations and procedures to determine what kind of changes need to be made and make recommendations. The general goal is to broaden women’s economic activities, facilitate their participation in the labor force and develop the support services, open more sectors for women, and encourage women to go into the scientific fields of study all while sustaining her role in the family and society.
These goals are outlined in the 8th Five-Year Plan for 2005 to 2009, according to Asharq Al-Awsat, sister publication of Arab News. The plan identifies 20 steps to open employment and investment opportunities for women. These include conducting a comprehensive study on current regulations and what needs to be done to guarantee women’s participation; organizing awareness campaigns for the society to accept women’s employment; increasing women’s presence in administrative and technical positions at government administrations; implementing long-term policies that would decrease women’s unemployment rate and for government institutions and private organizations to provide consultation services for women in work.
The plan also calls for encouraging women to work in private business by facilitating the means to get loans, especially for small and medium businesses, to ease procedures for saving and to reduce investment and production risks. In addition, it recognizes the need to fund financial institutions that assist small and medium businesses for women and providing support services such as daycare centers that would enable women to benefit from the job opportunities offered and continue in them.
The plan also points to the importance of developing the support mechanisms that would persuade women to expand their sphere of economic sectors and job market especially in the modern economic sectors.
The plan outlined intentions to change the education curriculum that would reflect this direction by increasing women’s vocational training, incorporating technical education in the girls’ curriculum and encouraging high school female students to take up science instead of humanities.
The plan explained that with the limited job opportunities for women in the public and private sector and the growing number of female graduates, investment is one of the best answers for women not only for them to find work but also to contribute to the gross national production and employ other women. Therefore, the plan focused on providing more investment opportunities for women who it is estimated have around SR15 billion in bank accounts untapped resources.
More and more women are investing their money; according to the 2004 statistics from the chambers of commerce the top three sectors are retail and wholesale trade, food products and clothing. However, women began entering investment fields that were out of their reach a few years ago such as real estate, industry and agriculture. Together, these three sectors represent around 80 percent of the total trade registrations.
There are 22.5 thousand trade registrations owned by women, representing 4.7 percent of the number of trade registers in the chambers of commerce.
Women’s high unemployment rate is a burden on Saudi economy and the eighth Five-Year Plan addresses some of the issues and concerns regarding this problem. According to the 2002 statistics, the ratio of employed women to the total employed is 12.8:100 and the ratio of unemployed women to the total unemployed is 33.2:100. Unemployment among women is 21.7 percent and among men it is 7.6 percent. These numbers require a detailed study of the type of unemployment among women, its direction and its reasons.
Among the top reasons cited by the plan is the incompatibility of the education specialties and the job market needs. The 2002 statistics showed that 50.6 of the total unemployed women looking for jobs are college graduates whereas the rate is 6.3 percent for unemployed men. The limited education specialties offered to women plus the limited job opportunities created fierce competition among them. In addition to that, postgraduate institutions are accepting fewer high school graduates thus pushing these girls out in the job market without real practical training. The government employs the largest number of women who made up 30 percent of government employees in 2003. The education sector employs the majority of these women with 83.4 percent, followed by the health sector with 5.4 percent.
The plan shows that the high concentration of women in one sector restricts the job opportunities that can be offered adding to the unemployment rate. This leads to two important issues according to the plan. The first is the increased pressure on the family financially and psychologically and the second is the need to correct this problem caused by the limited education specialties and work opportunities.
