MENA Women in the Economy Rabat, December 8-9, 2005

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MENA Women in the EconomyRabat, December 8-9,
2005

• Nadereh Chamlou
• Senior Advisor to the Chief Economist
• Economic and Sector Work
• The Middle East and North Africa Region

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Definitions

• Millennium Development Goal 3
• Gender Equality and Womens Empowerment, measured
  by
• Educational attainment
• Formal labor force participation
• Political representation
• Difference between Sex and Gender
• Gender Equality
• Equal access to opportunity
• Equal voice
• Equal treatment under the law

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Why is Gender important?

• Low growth has led to low employment generation
  particularly among the young
• Significant evidence that gender inequity and
  inequality impacts growth
• Gender inequality is the most pervasive type of
  inequality which cuts across all other categories
  of inequality impacts development most deeply

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• The MENA Paradox

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increasingly, talent pool equal among sexes
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Extensive investment in social indicatorsbecause
of shortfall in empowerment indicators
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Womens formal labor force participation lowest
among all regions
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Women remain an untapped resource
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Characteristics of women in the labor market
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Characteristics of women in the labor market
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Why? Differential Treatment under the Law

• Unequal rights and powers in the private sphere
• Unequal access to public sphere as interaction
  with state may be mediated through a male kin
• Centrality of the family
• Concept of male breadwinner
• Concept of equity rather equality defined roles
• Code of modesty - Protection of womens honor

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Gender-based Legal Framework in MENA

• CEDAW (passed by all but Iran, albeit with
  reservations mainly in areas relating to
  inheritance, family law)
• Constitution (guarantees equal rights for all
  citizens)
• However, ordinary legislation is discriminatory
• Personal Status Code based on Sharia (marriage,
  divorce, custody, inheritance)
• Civil Status Code based on Western Legal Models
  (labor, nationality, pensions, etc)

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Example of Differential Treatment

• Labor laws and regulations
• Limitations on hours and type of work so as to
  protect women
• Mobility laws restricting womens travel within
  and outside the country
• Social benefits denominated in terms of number of
  female employees (such as on-sight child-care)
• Permission of husband to work or freedom of
  movement
• ? These increase the implicit and explicit cost
  of women employees

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The Effect of Differential Sex-based Treatment
under the Law Example Implicit cost can
function like a sex-based minimum wage

• A minimum wage is imposed for men. This divides
  the labor market into two segments.
• Employment in the Covered Market with decline ---
  employment in the Uncovered Market will rise
  (assuming that men and women are perfect
  substitutes.)
• Upward sloping female labor supply curve raises
  wages to minimum wage level. Results in
  decline in employment and the use of other
  factors of production, such as capital and
  energy. Increase, causing a leftward shift of the
  demand curve for male labor (form D0 to D1).
• Total employment declines.
• Source The Economics of Gender (Joyce Jacobson)

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Female labor force participation and higher
overall employment
Empirical evidence does not support the claim
that womens increased labor force participation
increases unemployment
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Consequences of womens low economic
participation to family and economy

• Cost to the family
• Egypt 25, Jordan 20, Morocco 17
• Womens work is increasingly the ticket between
  poverty and middle class
• It is also an important source of income for
  expenditures on better education and health of
  next generation

• Cost to the economy
• For a subset of countries, GDP could have been
  2.6 instead of 1.9 with greater female
  participation in labor force.
• Translates into billions of dollars of lost
  opportunity and development for the region.

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Why gender issues are important for MENA now?

• Need to create 100 million jobs economies have
  to be more market oriented
• Well functioning markets depend on a level
  playing field for all players
• Women constitute a large proportion of the work
  force essential for competitiveness
• Women entrepreneurs essential contributors to
  innovation and investment
• Gender based discrimination -- invisible brain
  drain
• Information technology changes meaning of
  geography, networks, production methods push
  for more knowledge content which opens up new
  opportunities for new players

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Agenda for Workshop

• Focus on Womens Economic Rights and
  Opportunities
• consistent with religion, tradition, human needs
• Three entry points
• Public Policy
• Employment
• Entrepreneurship

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Conclusion

• Gender is no for the sake of women but for
  welfare of society
• MENA countries will undergo vast reforms --focus
  on economic rights to remove discrimination
• It is important to ensure the engender reform
  agenda
• Create level playing field for all
• What is the magnitude of the problem and how does
  it affect the effects that existing, or
  persistent, gender inequalities will have on the
  outcomes and the success of economic policies
  and
• the specific actions that are needed to mitigate
  gender based barriersthe level of resources that
  are needed and who is best placed to act on them,
  be it the government, NGOs, and the civil
  society.