Survey points to married women’s low participation in labour force

AMMAN — About 85.5 per cent of women, who have been married in Jordan, are out of the labour force, while 13.8 per cent have jobs and 0.7 per cent are jobseekers, Sisterhood Is Global Institute (SIGI) said on Tuesday. 

SIGI, citing the 2017-2018 population and family health survey issued by the Department of Statistics, said that age, marital status, number of children, financial status, the place of living, educational level and nationality have “direct impacts” on women’s economic participation.

In a statement made available to The Jordan Times, the institute said that 99 per cent of women, who have been married and aged 15-19, have never worked, while only 1 per cent of them have jobs now.

Women who have been married and aged 30-34 have the biggest share labour participation with 19.4 per cent, SIGI said.

The results of the survey showed that 12.8 per cent of women who are currently married have jobs, while 26.5 per cent of working women are either divorced or widows, SIGI said.

As for the impact of having children, the survey showed that 17.8 per cent of women who do not have children are working women and the percentage drops to 7.2 per cent for women who have five children and more.

Regarding the level of education, SIGI said that 27.6 per cent of married working women hold degrees higher than the second secondary school certificate, while 12.3 per cent of working women are illiterate.

The results of the survey also showed that poverty among married working women is "so low", where only 5.2 per cent are poor, while 25.9 per cent enjoy a "high level of welfare", SIGI said.