Women in the workforce: The GCC's long road to gender equality

In countries across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), there has been significant focus in recent years on increasing the percentage of women participating in the workforce, as all six states strive to diversify their economies away from their traditional reliance on hydrocarbon wealth and nationalise their workforces to diminish reliance on expatriate labour.

In the past two years, the shock and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the exodus of a large number of foreign workers, a pillar of GCC economies, from the region. The impact of this exodus was tangible - over the course of 2020, the population of the GCC decreased by 4 percent.

As a result, workforce nationalisation seems more achievable and more necessary than ever, and women play a crucial role in the advancement of these policies.

Indeed, Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 features the ambitious target of integrating 1 million women into the workforce by 2030, with more than 51,000 Saudi women having joined the labour market in 2020 alone.

Last month, a job advertisement aiming to recruit 30 female train drivers in Saudi Arabia attracted an impressive 28,000 applicants.

"Workforce rights are certainly a step forward, but there remain serious tensions when it comes to social policy across the GCC that make women's place in the workforce precarious"

Despite the apparent appetite for Saudi women to join the workforce, they still comprise just 34.1 percent of the country’s total labour force, and female unemployment remains three times higher than for men at 21.9 percent.

Bringing women into the workforce notably (and very publicly) required attendant changes to previously restrictive social policies in the conservative Gulf kingdom, with women granted the right to drive in 2018, the right to travel abroad and obtain or renew a passport without a male guardian’s permission in 2019, and the right to live alone without the permission of a male guardian as of 2021.

Such changes, which are still relatively recent, have undoubtedly helped Saudi women overcome social and logistical challenges to joining the workforce, and potentially increased political visibility, but there are still a number of infrastructural and cultural obstacles hindering the full economic integration of women.

Workforce rights are certainly a step forward, but there remain serious tensions when it comes to social policy across the GCC that make women’s place in the workforce precarious. Just last month, five Saudi female employees filed a complaint after they claimed to be arbitrarily fired from their jobs “in favour of a foreigner”.

Recent events in Kuwait provide the best example of how attitudes towards women and their activities often become a flashpoint between conservative religious groups and more liberal, secular groups within the population.

Last month, tensions bubbled after authorities postponed an all-female yoga retreat on grounds that it required a permit and claims that it was “immoral”. This decision, which garnered significant attention in Western media and outrage among Kuwaiti women, notably came on the heels of another controversial decision that amended the conditions for women to join the military.

The decision to allow Kuwaiti women to enlist had been first announced in October, but after the ministry of Islamic Affairs reviewed the decision, the government now requires women enlisting to wear a hijab and secure a male guardian’s permission; they also will be allowed in combat roles but will not be allowed to carry guns.

These recent changes stirred protest among Kuwaiti women who decry such changes as infringing on their rights. Earlier this year, Kuwaiti authorities also upheld article 153 after a spate of high-profile so-called honour killings in 2021 led to public pressure to amend or abolish the article, which sentences those that kill their partners to at most three years in prison and a $46 fine.

A parliamentary committee referred the law to clerics for their consideration, and they confirmed that the law had to be upheld. This decision sparked outrage, as female activists have led the Abolish 153 campaign to enhance protection for women from domestic abuse.

In the effort to increase women’s participation in the workforce, a reckoning with the conservative social and legal policies that hinder not only women’s liberty but also safety must be part of the conversation. True economic integration will require a shift in deep-seated mentalities about women’s role in society.

One means of changing social policies that affect women in the GCC would be greater involvement of women in political decision-making bodies, where women’s representation remains severely limited. Notably, Kuwait and Qatar held elections in 2020 and 2021 respectively in which not a single woman received a seat.

These results led to discussion in Kuwait about the implementation of a quota system for women in parliament and led the Qatari Emir to appoint two women to the non-elected positions in the Shura Council.

Debates about a female quota have also emerged in Oman, where two women were elected in 2019 to sit on the partially elected Council of Oman, which has 86 elected seats total.

"Although the focus on government sponsored women's leadership within institutions across the GCC is crucial to promoting a more economically sound model for gender equality, there needs to be equal emphasis on removing social and legal practices that disempower women"

The UAE, for its part, has put in place a quota for women in the country’s partially elected Federal National Council (FNC). In 2018, Emirati President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan mandated that 50 percent of FNC representatives be women; previously, women had accounted for just 22.5 percent of members.

The UAE also requires, as of March 2021, that listed companies have at least one female board member, since 96 percent of such positions had been held by men.

There appear to be different attitudes, then, across the GCC about the best way to enhance female representation and visibility, whether through their participation in the labour force or in parliamentary bodies.

As Kuwaiti academic Alanoud Alsharekh points out, however, changes in representation at the economic or political level are not sufficient to ensure broader scale gender equality.

“Although the focus on government-sponsored women’s leadership within institutions across the GCC is crucial to promoting a more economically sound model for gender equality, there needs to be equal emphasis on removing social and legal practices that disempower women, especially public discourses around harassment and violence,” she told The New Arab. 

Increasingly, governments across the GCC appear to be in agreement about the need to enhance female representation in their economies and labour forces at the very least, with some making public attempts to grant women more authority in politics and policymaking as well.

Whether this political will at the top translates into concrete changes within society and how these changes take place, however, only time will tell.

Dr Courtney Freer is a research fellow at LSE Middle East Centre.

Follow her on Twitter: @CourtneyFreer