"A Summary and Reflection on Women’s Economic Participation Based on a Seminar by Dr. Sawan Gharaibeh" by Madeleine Walker
Women’s Economic Participation in Jordan
A couple of weeks ago, my Amideast peers and I listened to guest speaker Dr. Sawsan Gharaibeh discuss the stagnancy of Jordan’s economic growth in the last decade. Gharaibeh is currently a lecturer at Amideast, a part-time Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Advisor for USAID Economic Reform Activity, and an alumnus of the Fulbright program, during which she studied at UVA for three years.
At the beginning of her presentation, Dr. Gharaibeh referenced a March 2022 report by the World Bank, entitled “Women, Business, and the Law”[1] in which Jordan received a low score for women’s participation. Indeed, 85% of Jordanian women are economically inactive, which is the lowest for a country not in war.[2] This economic inactivity is especially evident among the youth population: youth are the majority in Jordan, and yet, about 32% of youth are not in training, employment, or education.[3] (Youths here are approximately those aged 15-30 or 18-30 years old, depending on the organization reporting the data. This percentage is based on the 15-30 age range.) As a woman between the age of 15 and 30 myself, given that I have had at least a dozen various employers in my life, I was shocked to hear this data.
Interestingly, Dr. Gharaibeh pinpointed the lack of gender and climate-conscious investment in Jordan’s economy as a key reason for its stagnant condition. She touched on some of the legal, employment, and social issues that she believes influence this inaction. For instance, while the Constitution has recently added women[4] and Sharia rules of inheritance have been loosened, women are still socially pressured to forfeit their shares.[5]
Dr. Gharaibeh generously agreed to answer some of my questions later that week, where she elaborated on the social stigma of women’s participation in the economy. The key reason for this lack was diagnosed for the first time in 2018 by the World Bank. The organization pointed to women's decision to work as being heavily influenced by their male family members’ opinions.
Unmarried women and married women generally face different obstacles, Gharaibeh explained. Married women are expected to maintain gender roles, such as doing the dishes, feeding the kids, and generally taking care of the rest of the family and the house. The cost of childcare is also a barrier. However, unmarried women are often prevented from working for fear of sexual harassment. Gharaibeh suggested some governmental actions that could reduce these concerns, such as better incentives for dual-income families (ex. advantageous taxes), and the implementation of stricter harassment-related safety measures in both the workplace and on public transit.
Significant economic benefits could result from increased female participation in the workforce. For instance, Dr. Gharaibeh explained that Jordanian children could, on average, benefit immensely from a second family income source. On this topic, she listed anemia, malnourishment, and physical developmental problems as consequences of poor food quality. This quality is largely affected by inflation, but could be improved via increased financial accessibility on more, healthier products through additional family income.
Acknowledging Perspective
With all this in mind, thinking beyond economic benefits, I initially struggled to determine how beneficial this increased women’s economic participation could really be. Would such a shift lead to Westernization and cultural erasure? Is there an inflexible tradeoff between economic growth and cultural preservation?
My family and I expect that I will have a full-time career when I graduate from college, and that I will likely continue to be a breadwinner even after I’ve had children. However, just because I want this for myself, and just because full-time female employment is more mainstream in the US than in Jordan, does not mean that Jordanian labor culture is wrong. What we should be assessing is whether women are remaining in the home due solely to social and family pressures, or due to their own prerogative.
To this end, I admire Dr. Gharaibeh and her work immensely. Her personal #1 rule is to do no harm and she achieves this by educating others on their economic options. Providing education, sans pressure or judgment, allows people to make their own, informed decisions. If Jordanian women learn about how their lives and the economy can be improved via their work, then they should be allowed to. Dr. Gharabieh also works to ensure that, if Jordanian women do decide to work, they do not face institutional obstacles.
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[1] https://wbl.worldbank.org/en/wbl
[2] https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/33587/Womens-Economic-Empowerment-in-Jordan.pdf
[3] https://www.unicef.org/jordan/youth#:~:text=In%20Jordan%2C%20100%2C000%20young%20people,participation%20rate%20in%20the%20world.
[4] https://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/adding-%E2%80%98jordanian-women%E2%80%99-constitution-%E2%80%98-step-forward-long-way-go%E2%80%99-%E2%80%94-activists
[5] https://arabstates.gltn.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/TechnicalSession6_Exclusion-of-Women_Ababsa_IFPRO-paper.pdf
Madeleine Walker is a student at Georgetown University and is participating on the Amideast Summer Intensive Arabic Program in Amman, Jordan.
