EQUAL TIMES (4/12/2018)
In Jordan, more women than men are going to university and girls have been consistently outperforming boys academically. Yet women’s participation in the workforce remains one of the lowest in the world. Meet some of the women trying to change this.
When Dina Saad attended a job fair in Jordan’s busy capital of Amman, she was surprised to find that the vast majority of job seekers were young women like herself. Saad, who finished her master’s degree in international relations with honours a year ago, did not expect the fair to be attended by around 80 per cent women.
In Jordan, women outnumber and outperform men in universities. But despite their educational achievements, they are much more likely to be unemployed or to drop out of the labour force than men. Around 77 per cent of unemployed women in Jordan have a bachelor’s degree or higher. The unemployment rate for men who attended higher education is four times lower, at around 26 per cent.
Saad spent months sending resumes and applying for jobs. “I was interested in the foreign ministry, but most people working there are men.” She felt discriminated in job
With a 95 per cent literacy rate, Jordanian women are amongst the most highly educated in the region. Jordan, however, has one of the world’s lowest rates of female participation in the labour force. Last year, only 14 per cent of Jordanian women were part of the formal labour market according to the World Bank. The rate is only lower in war-torn Syria (10 per cent) and Yemen (6 per cent).
Throughout the Middle East most girls attend school and more women than men are going to university. In Jordan, girls have been consistently outperforming boys academically in almost every subject and age level. And yet, most women are unlikely to put their degrees to paid use. So why is women’s economic participation so low in Jordan, especially when educational levels are so high?
Read more: https://www.equaltimes.org/the-jordanian-women-fighting-for#.XAZhrdszbIU