FEMALE EMPLOYMENT AND FAMILY COMMITMENT IN SAUDI ARABIA. A CASE STUDY OF ...

410 Pages·2008·12.98 MB·English

V
Table Of Contents

Chapters Page
I Introduction 1
II The Debate about Women's Work 11
III Methodology 71
IV Pre-oil Saudi society 87
V Saudi Society Today 126
VI Women and Paid Labour 187
VII Women and Domestic Work 252
VIII Women's Double Roles 308
IX Conclusion 353
Appendix 1 367
Appendix 2 369
Appendix 3 377
Bibliography 379
VI
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia0
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Source: Third Development Plan 1O0 — l+O5 AH — 1980 — 1985 AD
Iingdom of Saudi arabia, Ministry of Planning.
1
Chapter I
Introduction
According to Engels (191 2), the absence of women
in the labour market, and their confinement to the
private sector, is responsible for their subordinated
position in society. This ethnographic study argues that
women's increasing participation in the labour market in
the Saudi Arabian city of Riyadh is not by itself
sufficient to improve the status of women In the family.
Although women participate in the labour fore in Saudi
Arabia (for instance constitute 7.6 per cent of the clvii
service in Saudi Arabla),ideological assumptions about the
nature end characteristics of the sexes perpetuate
existing gender relations. Certain mechanisms such as the
interpretation of Islam, kinship relations, socialization
and the formal educational system maintain the sexual
division of labour and the subordination of women in the
labour market.
Men and women are brought up to believe that
housework is a woman's responsibility; men only are the
breadwinners of the family. When women enter the labour
force, they add a new role to their traditional role.
Both roles demand a great deal of women's time, energy.
and skill. Fatherhood and paid work are seen as
complementary and supportive of each other, while
motherhood and paid work are seen to be in conflict.
Working mothers are frequently accused in the media of
being neglectful of their children and families, on the
one hand, and uncommitted and unproductive in their work
on the other. Thus, the present study was designed to
2
investigate both the ways in which women's paid work
affects their domestic responsibilities as mothers and
housewives, and the impact of women's familial roles on
their performance of their paid work. This study will
examine the material factors that enable working women to
manage their "double day";at the same time I will also
consider the Ideological structures that help or hinder
working women to combine their "double roles". By using
the concept "double roles", I mean the potential conflict
that a person faces when he or she adds a new role to his
or her expected behaviour in the society. By "double day"
on the other hand, I mean the problems of scheduling and
pressures of time in combinin g women's domestic and paid
activities, which make their working hours longer and
their material burden greater than that of women who do
not participate in paid labour.
Following the discovery of oil, Saudi Arabian
society has witnessed massive changes in almost every
aspect of life. One of these changes has been the
expansion of female education. Female education has
opened up the new option for women to seek paid work.
More married women join the labour force every year, and
the question of women's double roles has acquired
increasing significance.
The restrictions on female employment exacerbate
the national shortage of human resources, which is one of
the major challenges to development in Saudi society
today. Foreign labour constitutes 59.8 per cent of the
labour force. The female participation rate is very low,
one of the lowest rates In the world (Dearden 1982). Only
3
5.1 per cent of Saudi women of working age participate in
the labour force ( The Fourth Development Plan: 89).
Considering that the average cost of a student completing
university is S.R.48,600, which is equal to $13,800
(Alkashmiri 1985: 117), one can realize the amount of lost
investment that the government must bear when educated
women withdraw from the labour market.
Woman's work has already been the focus of research
by some scholars In Saudi Arabia. Some of these
studies,such as Al Gadi (1975), AlManaa (1982). Assad
(1983), Al Saad (1982). Al Baker (1983), and Halawani
(1982), have been directed at the study of working
women in the labour force and the different factors that
hinder them from fulfilling their work demands. On the
other hand, other studies such as Assad (1977), Al Khateeb
(1981). Nasser and Yaghmour (1983) have directed their
attention at the study of the effects of woman's work on
her family life and her power in family decision-making.
No study has previously considered the mutual relationship
between family and work and the way in which working
mothers perceive and handle their double roles In
day-to-day activities. Thus, the present study is a
pioneer investigation which focuses its attention on the
Impact of family life on work, and the impact of work on
family life.
This study was carried out In RIyadh,the capital of
Saudi Arabia. The name"Riyadh" means"gardens" and was
first used in the 12th century. Rlyadh lies in the
southern part of Naid, the central area of the Arabian
Peninsula. Before the discovery of oil, the Naid was
IL
inhabited by dispersed tribes. The climate in Najd
obliged the majority of the inhabitants there to lead a
nomadic way of life. Herding was their primary
livelihood. The emergence of the Wahabi movement In Maid
has given Riyadh the reputation of being more conservative
than other parts of the kingdom.
The discovery of oil in 1938 laid the foundation for
the transformation of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia from a
poor isolated country to an economic power at the centre
of the world stage. The oil boom has encouraged the
government to adopt a series of five year development
plans which aim to achieve two main goals: to raise the
standard of living of Saudi citizens by offering social
services such as health care, housing, transportation. and
social welfare and to channel the relatively sudden
Increase of wealth in Saudi Arabia into the creation of a
progressive and self-sustaining economy.
Although most developing countries share some
similarities, Saudi Arabia is In a unique position for two
reasons. First, while most developing countries are
suffering from a shortage of material resources, Saudi
Arabia is one of the richest countries in the world. It
is one of the largest oil exporters and has the largest
share of world oil reserves. Most countries have
experienced economic changes over a long period of time.
But the relatively recent discovery of oil has enabled the
Saudi economy to move very rapidly towards economic
modernization. The influx of wealth has transformed the
life style of the people of the Arabian Peninsula from a
nomadic way of life to a cash economy based on the oil
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industry,and this in a very short period of time. Thus,
one can say that Saudi Arabia is a developing country with
the economic resources of a developed country. Second, the
location of Saudi Arabia as the heartland of Islam, and
its role as the guardian of the holy cities of Mecca and
Medina, has given it a central religious importance in the
Muslim world. At the same time, this has put more
pressure on the Saudi government to adhere particularly
closely to Islamic teachings, while confronting different
opposing ideological forces from Eastern and Western
countries. Saudi Arabia is one of the few Muslim
countries which depends on Sharia law as the basis of its
legal system. Following Islamic teachings does not mean
that Saudi legislation is static; Saudi legislation, which
will be discussed in more detail in the following
chapters, is adapted and reconstituted according to the
demands of the modern state, providing it respects the
main principles of Islam.
Before the discovery of oil, economic necessity
obliged the majority of bedouln and rural women in the
Arabian Peninsula to work inside and outside their homes
to contribute to their families' subsistence. But their
labour was not acknowledged as "work" because it was not
paid, and it was instead considered part of their domestic
duties. The influx of wealth, the growth of urbanization
and the move toward an industriliazed economy have created
an increasing dichotomy between family and work. The oil
boom has encouraged Saudi men to employ foreign workers
and to seclude their womeri(2). Sexual segregation and the
veiling of women are the most noticeable features of Saudi
6
gender relations. There is a strict spatial segregation
between the sexes at schools, colleges, offices and
banks. Almost all women wear a black veilabayah to cover
their bodies and a small piece of cloth to cover the face.
The strictness of coverin g the face is determined
according to family lineage, family wealth, and the region
in which the family lives. Some regions such as Hejaz in
the West and the Eastern region are more flexible in
covering the face than Riyadh. Sex segregation has
enabled Saudi women to have their own lives apart from
men. There is a noticeable distinction between the world
of a man and the world of a woman.
Working mothers in Saudi Arabia today are confronted
with a dilemma not experienced by Saudi women previously.
They are faced with a conflict between staying at home
and raising ten or more children or seeking a career and
limiting their families to a small number of children.
In pre-oil Saudi society, bedouin and rural women did
not face the same conflict. This was due, in part, to the
fact that they experienced no separation between home and
workplace, and also to the widespread existence of the
extended family system which meant that mothers were not
the only persons looking after their children.
One of the important issues this study tries to
explore is whether material constraints are the only
problems faced by women working in Saudi Arabia. Does the
the widespread availability of a convenient domestic
replacement for working women, in the form of domestic
help or nurseries solve the problem of double roles for
working women? How do women from different family income
7
levels manage to combine their double roles? Do all
working women face the same material constraints in
combining their paid work with their domestic
responsibilities? Does women's participation In the labour
force incidentally improve their status in Saudi family?
These questions were examined for both the pre and
post-oil discovery periods of history and in relation to
Saudi women' a varying contributions to their household's
economy in these different periods.
Building on this research on Saudi women's double
roles, I have also been able to consider several related
issues. For example, many studies of working women
indicate that women are not given the same wages and the
same opportunities In the labour market as are men. Some
economic theories, such as the approach to Human Capital
theory, espoused by Blau and Jusenius argue that men and
women do not have equal wages because women accumulate
less human capital through work experience than men. The
main argument of this theory is that persons, be they male
or female, have various choices in the labour market, but
men and women evaluate these options differently. Women's
domestic responsiblities as mothers and housewives are
thought to make them take more casual or sick leave (Blau
& Jusenius 1976; O'Nei]. 1985). This view assumes that, on
one level, women's double roles affect the individual
working woman and reduce her performance and productivity
In the labour force. On the national level, working
mothers are often accused of being unproductive and
Intermittent In their careers, because they tend to spend
fewer years in salaried employment than men. This
a
assumption is shared by development planners in Saudi
Arabia, as in many other developing countries 1 and has led
them to treat women as an unimportant part of the nation's
human resources and fail to give them adequate
opportunities to utilize their full capacities in salaried
work. Women in Saudi Arabia are restricted to certain
jobs that do not compete with men's traditional roles in
the labour force. Jobs considered suitable for women
include education,health services,social work,banking and
private business - basically those jobs which are seen as
extensions of women's domestic roles. The present study
examines the assumption that working mothers constitute
a burden on the Saudi economy. Is it true that working
mothers do not fulfill their work demands and in
what ways do familial responsibilities affect women's
performance at work?
Most studies of women in Muslim countries argue
that because of sex segregation rules, Muslim women
display the lowest participation rates in the labour force
in the world, and they accuse Islam of being responsible
for this phenomenon (Whlte,1978; Youssef,1971t;
Smock,1977). One of the points that this study will look
at is, to what extent is this argument applicable to
Saudi Arabia? Is Islam as such responsible for women's
limited participation in the labour force?
On a related theme, many studies of the veil in
Muslim countries have been carried out by Western
sociologists, and most of these studies reflect an
ethnocentric point of view towards the veil. This study
will try to find out to what extent Western points of view