(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Women say they are treated less favourably when it comes to salary benefits and career progression.
Abu Dhabi — Discrimination at workplace remains a challenge for women in the region.
According to a survey carried out last year by Bayt.com the region’s leading job site on the ‘Status of Working Women in the Middle East’ respondents said while men and women received equal opportunity during recruitment and selection training and development advice and support women felt they were treated less favourably when it comes to salary benefits and career progression.
“If I look at fairness measures majority of the women surveyed said they have the same chances of getting into the job like their male colleagues; however when it came to pay benefits and promotions women felt they were getting the short end of the stick on majority of those outputs” explained Rabea Ataya founder and CEO of Bayt.com.
In a moderated discussion on women in the workplace held at the New York University Abu Dhabi recently Ataya said despite the above findings women in the UAE still felt that they are being treated far better than other women in the GCC and their Western counterparts.
National women
Dr Fatima Saeed Al Shamsi deputy vice-chancellor for Administrative Affairs at Paris-Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi noted that female participation in the workforce especially at the GCC level is very low compared to the international ratio.
“Roughly we can say that out of eight to nine million GCC female nationals in the working group only a third are in professional level positions” she said noting that participation in Saudi Arabia stands at only 12 per cent while it is 28 per cent in the UAE while 35 per cent in Qatar.
“Women (with) higher vocation level outnumber the male yet in the workplace their participation rate is very low” she noted.
Misconception
May Al Dabbagh assistant professor of Social Research and Public Policy at NYUAD who moderated the discussion pointed out that there exists a “misconception” that women doesn’t really want to work and that participation is a matter of choice preferring to work primarily in the public sector.
“I think the reason why women in the UAE are not willing to join the private sector is because the environment is not attractive to women not only among nationals. Women want to join the government because they think their contribution is better (recognised) in that sector” Dr Al Shamsi explained.
Cultural and social issues
She added that cultural and social issues play a major role in the lack of women participation in the workforce. These include geographical immobility social stigma attached to women working in a particular sector gender stereotyping especially at executive level and familial obligations.
“In the UAE on geographical mobility we can say that the higher rate of female unemployment is in the Northern Emirates like Ras Al Khaimah because it’s hard for women to move to Dubai or Abu Dhabi” she said.
She noted that inflexibility of working hours prevents a wife and a mother from joining the labour market while lack of coaching and mentoring absence of clear and well-defined career development plan maternity leave policy and non-availability of day care centre are some of the obstacles women complained about.
“From our research women also complained of unfair sponsorship rules that existed in the country that women can’t sponsor their children and this prevents her from getting the benefit a male gets like education allowance insurance and (other) allowances.”
“So these are the kind of challenges why (women) are not happy to join the workforce and feel like they are discriminated against” she added.
Retaining women
Ataya underscored the important role companies should play in retaining women especially at a “juncture of pregnancy.”
“The females we have in our organisation are very valuable and we don’t want to part ways at a juncture of pregnancy and child-raising nor did we want to put undue duress or demand to our women workers. Flexibility when it comes to motherhood is important not only in getting them back in the workplace but also in the hours they leave the job responsibilities and the amount of travelling it requires.”
He noted that the company policy has “benefitted us tremendously because it left us with the a normal talent who up on returning was so loyal to the organisation that up on coming back was so determined to make it work that we got much better productivity out of them than the average employee.”
oliviakhaleejtimes.com