Increasing the number of working women in societies around the world is a key driver for growth and change. Advancing the role of women is especially critical in developing nations such as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and South Asian countries, whose progress toward more equitable laws over recent decades has been less notable and where women face various cultural and political barriers as well as actual laws, that keep them out of the workforce. 

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says the Middle East and North Africa are collectively losing an estimated $575 billion a year due to the legal and social barriers that exist around women’s access to jobs and careers. Unfortunately, economic loss is only one of the many consequences. 

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The inclusion of women in professional and technical jobs can contribute to drastic changes across all sectors and industries, it can turbo-charge economic growth in regions that will be significantly impacted by the Fourth Industrial Revolution—making their participation all the more critical. 

This paper will explore current trends in women employment across the MENA and South Asia regions, the challenges they face in their pursuit of financial independence as well as what is being done by governments and organizations to uplift working women.

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Women’s economic activity in the MENA region and South Asia: 

It is important to first analyze the current role women play in economic activity in order to gain a better understanding of the state of their development in MENA and South Asian economies. On virtually every global measure, women are always at a disadvantage, they are more economically excluded than men. Trends suggest that women’s labour force participation (ages 15+) worldwide over the last two decades has stagnated, declining from 50 to 46 percent globally. 

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Based on official statistics and data from the International Labour Organization and The World Bank, we can clearly observe the disparity between men and women in labour participation.

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Gender gaps in employment 

The examination of the data above underscores the extremely low rate of female formal labour force participation in the MENA region. At 20.12%, this is the lowest level of women’s economic participation in any region in the world followed closely by South Asia with a female labour force participation percentage of 23.36%. 

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However, there are large variations across the MENA economies. According to the latest official national statistical sources, over 40% of women in Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain participate in the labour force, compared to only 13.5% in both Algeria and Jordan, 11.2% in Iraq, with Yemen in the bottom of the region with an estimate of 6% of female participation in the workforce (International Labour Organization, 2020). 

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On average, the labour force participation rate of men in the MENA region is three times that of women, with the largest gender gaps in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Palestine, Jordan and Algeria (four to seven times greater). The employment rate for adult women is consistently lower than that for men, averaging only a third of the male employment rate (but varying from two-thirds of the male rate in Kuwait to only 13% of the male rate in Yemen) (OECD 2012). 

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Similarly in South Asia and despite economic growth, job creation remains limited which further pushes women out of the labour market. In fact, in the Survey of World Values, the majority of respondents (52% in India and 75% in Pakistan) agreed with the following statement: “When jobs are scarce, they should be given in priority to men ” (Survey of World Values). 

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Beyond the generalizations of the situation in South Asia, country-specific patterns are far more astounding. Most significant is the falling engagement of women within the Nepali workforce to 26.3% in 2017 after it was almost 80% in 2015 in addition to the female Indian workforce reducing, from 37.71% in 2001 to 20% in 2018, which happened in spite of solid and strong economic development. 

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In contrast to India, women in Maldives and Bhutan are the most involved in the labour market within South Asian countries, Bangladesh is closely behind with a rate of 36% as of 2017, which is due to the development of the ready-made garment sector and an increase in rural female employment. The rate has also increased in Pakistan, albeit from a very low starting point, while participation has remained relatively stable in Sri Lanka, though the latter has witnessed robust economic growth in recent years (International Labour Organization 2020). 

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Gender Gaps in Leadership Positions

Women are widely under-represented in senior positions and governing bodies of large companies. Mirroring their overall situation in the labour market, MENA and South Asian countries suffer from the absence of women in leadership positions. 

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Gender gaps in entrepreneurship 

While very few women are breaking through the glass ceiling to top managerial posts, entrepreneurship is gaining importance as an alternative avenue for their economic empowerment, however it is still a widely untapped source of economic growth and social progress, and job creation. 

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Due to various barriers, the number of women-led businesses in MENA countries remains among the lowest in the world. Although women own and manage between 31% and 38% of companies globally, a survey carried out by the World Bank between the period 2003-2010 shows that it represents only 15% of companies in the MENA region (ONUDI, 2015). In the MENA zone, the role assigned to women as mothers and heads of household is a fundamental cultural principle. This reality reveals to us that priority is given to the family rather than to involvement in the public and economic sphere. 

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As of recent data, in South Asia only 8 to 9% of formal small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are female owned in the region. Bangladesh and Pakistan rank among the lowest in terms of women entrepreneurship.

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Other available sources corroborate relatively low shares of women entrepreneurs owning and managing micro, small and medium enterprises/MSMEs, ranging from 10% in Bangladesh and Nepal to 13.7% in India. The near absence of women’s involvement in business is due among other reasons to the lack of equitable access to finance and credit (ESCAP-SSWA, 2015). 

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Women have less confidence in themselves and have a higher fear of failure, which puts them further at risk. They usually tend to start businesses for which start-up costs are low and entry barriers minimal. Over two-thirds of women in the Arab World are likely to operate businesses in consumer-related sectors, while investments in the STEM fields remain very low in both MENA and South Asia (OECD, 2012). 

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The inability to harness the potential of women entrepreneurship costs the regions dearly. It is a pillar of economic growth and development, contributing significantly to manufactured outputs and GDP. Studies have demonstrated that women reinvest and spend more of their income on the health, education, and well-being of their families and communities than do men. Therefore, there are important multiplier effects of women’s participation in the labour force and in entrepreneurship.

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Gender gaps in politics 

It is extremely critical that women are included in decision-making and hold formal positions so that their voices can be heard and the interests of women, as well as men, are taken into consideration. 

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On average, women hold only 7% of ministerial positions and 15% in national parliaments in all the 9 countries of the South Asia region. In countries like Iran and Sri Lanka – women have as low as 3% and 6% share respectively, in ministerial positions and 3% and 5% share of women in parliament. Less than half of the South Asian countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan) have a Constitutional quota for women in their National Parliaments (UN Women, 2012).

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The proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments in MENA has multiplied by four over the last two decades, nevertheless, the gender gap in political empowerment across the countries is very high, as the male presentation in parliaments is 80%. The United Arab Emirates is the only country that has succeeded in reaching 50/50 parliament seats in the Arab world, while political female representation in Yemen is non-existent at 0.33% followed closely by Oman and Lebanon (IPU, 2020). Overall, there is a very low representation of women at the ministerial level and none of the countries have ever had a woman head of state. 

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