Relevent Country Background

In the years 2000, the employment-to-population ratio for women in the MEDA countries has increased from 20.4 to 23.5. This indicates improvement, certainly, but this ratio still remains the lowest in the world by far. Additionally, the quality of jobs created for women is often inferior to that of men (International Labour Organization in 2004).This phenomenon contributes to pursuing the trend of poverty feminisation.

Since Arab women represent a large share of the total population, around 49%, and an increasing share of the labor force, they are inevitably affected by the macroeconomic conditions and performance of their countries. The Arab countries’ main financial sources—oil, aid flows, and worker remittances—have recently been declining, which along with the structural reforms undertaken by Arab countries, has led to the shrinking of public sector, the main employer of the labor force, in particular of women. The public sector will likely be unable to continue to be the main job creator. The Arab countries’ labor force future growth rate for women is projected to be 5% annually during the period from 2000 to 2010. The new entrants are mainly educated, young, and women (World Bank, 2003). Government policies and resources that were directed to education and health have in fact produced a generation of young, educated women who are looking for job opportunities and who are on equal footing with their peer male counterparts. Although Arab women have high enrolment rates in higher education, their current participation in the labor force is still very limited. There is potential for women’s economic contribution in the development of the region; hence, gender equality is an economic necessity for the Arab countries.