Female labour participation and pay equity in Arab countries: commonalities and differences

Abstract

While there is a common belief that female labour indicators in Arab countries demonstrate a problematic situation, little is understood about the varieties within countries in that region. This paper attempts to draw a segmentation of the Arab world to show how different countries differ in this regard. It looks at two specific measures: the level of female participation as a percentage of male participation (FPM), and the female earned income to male income (FIM). Statistics from 20 Arab countries generated four clusters in which those countries are classified. Female labour indicators in most countries in the Arab world show similar patterns found in other countries in their stage of development. This confirms earlier research that indicates that women's labour participation decreases as societies move away from agriculture into manufacturing, services and industry. Only four countries are identified as outliers whose labour indicators can be understood within the context of the cultural values that dominate. The implications are discussed and individual research on female labour within each Arab country is invited.

Keywords:

• female labour participation
• pay inequity
• gender
• working women
• Arab countries
• economic development

Notes

1. See also the Gender Statistics Programmes in the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) (http://www.escwa.un.org/gsp/documents/publications.html).

2. There are, however, several attempts that aim at creating more consciousness as to the link between women's participation and economic development (e.g. Awad and Khamees 2013; Handoosah 2005).

3. For the case of the feminist movement in Lebanon, see Charafeddine (2008).

4. For a critical assessment of those early movements, see Hatem (2013).

5. For more on feminism in the Arab world, see Hollis (2013) (in a special issue in Contemporary Arab Affairs).

6. See also the example of education in UAE in Al-Suwaidi (2011).

7. Refer to the issue of ikhtilat or gender-mixing debate and its impact on women's participation in Meijer (2010).

8. For more on the challenges brought forward by a growing young population in Saudi Arabia, see Yamani (2010).

9. For the relation between women, work and Islam, see Sidani (2005). For a discussion on how institutional factors create variations among Arab countries, see Karam, Afiouni, and Nasr (2013).

10. For an elaborate discussion, see Mernissi (2002).

11. To understand more about the Lebanese society, see Rubin (2009).

12. For more information about the status of women in Tunisia, see Solidarity Center (2013). For the status of women in Lebanese legislation, see the Al-Raida (2005-06) journal special issue.

13. For the Egyptian case, see, for example, Sieverding (2012).

14. Farah (2006) indicates that UNDP measures of women's development are biased towards high-income countries as high incomes distort gender indices. The measures used in this paper are raw statistics that are not impacted by general levels of income.

15. For more on the potential effect of Arab revolutions, see Hanafi (2012).

16. For the changing roles of Yemeni women, see Al-Sakkaf (2012).