Women’s economic participation ‘key to higher GDP’ — experts

AMMAN — Aside from social and personal benefits, enhancing women’s participation in the economy is key to a higher gross domestic product (GDP), experts said on Tuesday.

Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Jawad Anani said enhancing women’s participation improves the quality and the size of the GDP. “Quality means sustainability, and sustainability is what we are after.”

The migration of more women from the household to the job market will enrich the economy, as women prove their efficiency and capabilities, said Anani, who is also minister of state for investment affairs.

“Women have always proven their ability to use technology and to assume administrative positions…women seem to have more precision than men,” he said at the opening of the Women’s Economic Participation Conference, organised by USAID Takamol.

Boosting women’s contribution to the economy requires amending the laws to encourage flexible working conditions as well as addressing issues related to transport, which hinders some women from taking job opportunities far from their homes, the minister added. 

While women make up 52 per cent of university students, their presence in the job market is still lagging behind, said US Ambassador to Jordan Alice G. Wells, adding that 70 per cent of unemployed women have bachelor’s degrees compared with 25 per cent of unemployed men.

Noting the current regional outlook and economic hardships, the ambassador said Jordan must come up with solutions to enhance growth, increase income and generate jobs. 

One way of achieving that lies in expanding “rapidly and steeply” the number of women in the workforce, she suggested. 

“We also need to encourage women to start businesses,” said Wells, who added that a typical Jordanian home-based business earns JD100-300 per month, an amount that goes into the family’s earnings to meet their livelihood needs.

“The US government will continue to work to provide a spectrum of support for home-based businesses and women start-ups, addressing their businesses’ technical needs and their access to finance gaps,” she said.

The diplomat said experts estimate that Jordan’s annual GDP would grow by 5 per cent if the Jordan Vision 2025 plan to increase women’s participation in the labour market to 24 per cent is realised.

Nadia Al Saeed, the general manager of Bank Al Etihad, the conference’s strategic partner, agreed with Wells, citing another study that found that increasing women’s participation in the local job market to the regional rate (around 30 per cent) would grow the GDP by 10 per cent.

Meanwhile, she said, around 25 per cent of newly registered businesses are women-led or owned by women, despite the fact that access to finance is a major issue facing women wishing to start businesses.

She added that the financial and non-financial services the bank has offered women have helped increase its number of female customers and the number of projects owned by women.

Takamol Chief of Party Nermeen Murad said the implementation of the programme, which started in May 2014, was based on several conclusions, mainly that women in Jordan were mostly invisible and their interest was not considered a primary consideration in decision making or strategic planning. 

“The other conclusion we arrived at pretty quickly was that men, women, communities, schools, universities, research communities, private sector, civil society, political parties and government… were mostly silent about the wide gap in gender equity and socio-cultural and structural challenges to achieving equity for women,” she said.

USAID Takamol is a five-year USAID-funded programme, implemented by US-based non-profit organisation IREX, that focuses on mainstreaming gender at the national and community levels through policy advocacy and social dialogue.

Meanwhile, Murad highlighted the conference as a platform bringing together stakeholders from all sectors to address challenges to women’s economic participation.

The two-day conference is looking into four main pillars for enhancing women’s economic participation: engaging political actors in the economic agenda, access to finance and funding entrepreneurship, home-based businesses and start-ups and matching market needs with education outputs.