Women in Jordan face occupational segregation, gender pay gap — Tamkeen

AMMAN — The Tamkeen for Legal Aid and Human Rights Organisation on Wednesday held a consultation session with government officials and employers to discuss challenges and potential solutions related to women’s employment in Jordan.

“Despite the adoption of various legislative acts and regulations over the years related to increasing women’s participation in the local labour market, there are still challenges that impede their engagement in different economic activities,” said a Tamkeen statement sent to The Jordan Times on Wednesday. The statement added that unemployment is increasing, and many people — particularly women — are earning their living through informal employment.

The session presented statistical analyses to explain why women are persistently underrepresented in the domestic labour market. 

“The underrepresentation is aggravated by the lack of appropriate transportation services and women-friendly work environments,” said Shereen Mazen, a researcher representing Tamkeen.

Women’s workforce participation tends to be more prevalent in the education and healthcare sectors, leading to “occupational segregation”, she said, adding that women also face an “evident” gender pay gap that favours men. 

According to the European Institute for Gender Equality, occupational segregation describes the “actual dominance of one sex in a particular occupation, or the higher share of one sex relative to the expected share”. 

Jordan is among the countries with the lowest rate of women’s economic participation, according to Tamkeen. A survey recently conducted by the organisation showed that improving the public transport system would solve “a major problem” for women and would encourage them to participate in the labour market due to increased accessibility. 

According to the Department of Statistics, the general unemployment rate reached 21.9 per cent in Q1 of 2023, at 19.6 per cent for men, compared with 30.7 per cent for women.