Mediaboss Marketing

Exceptionally low female labour force participation in Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon will get worse with the Covid-19 pandemic and action must be taken to improve the situation, according to the World Bank.

Less than 15 per cent of women work in Iraq and Jordan, and only 26 per cent in Lebanon, according to the Washington-based lenders latest report on womens economic participation in the three countries.

The participation rates for women in these three Mashreq countries, lie between 25 and 35 percentage points below the international average given their per capita GDP.

Iraq and Jordan rank among the countries with the lowest female participation rates in the world, only after war-torn Syria and Yemen.

To make matters worse, women are likely to be disproportionally affected by the labour market effects from Covid-19, the report said.

Women will probably experience a significant burden on their time given their multiple care responsibilities as school closures and confinement measures are adopted, possibly leading to reductions in working time and permanent exit from the labour market among those who currently participate.

The International Monetary Fund downgraded its forecast for the world economy and said it would contract by 4.9 per cent this year due a more severe economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic. The fund said the steep decline in economic activity has led to a catastrophic hit to the worlds labour market.

Women tend to work in sectors that have been hit particularly hard, such as the service sector, and in more vulnerable forms of employment, such as part-time or informal work, the World Bank report said.

These factors leave them out of formal social protection measures targeted to workers, making it even more complicated to cope with the crisis, the World Bank said.

Females are also likely to be left out in a context where societal attitudes suggest that in times of scarcity of jobs, those should go to men.

Women in the Mashreq countries who are willing to participate in the labour market face high unemployment rates and tend to be paid less for similar work. Female unemployment is nearly twice that for men, reaching almost 25 per cent in Jordan.

The gender wage gap for women and men working similar jobs with similar education and experience is about 17 per cent in Jordans private sector and 18 per cent and 22 per cent for all workers in Iraq and Lebanon, respectively.

The report calls for action in the areas of stronger economic growth, effective policy action to close legal gaps, promotion of more egalitarian attitudes, access to quality healthcare and the provision of safe transportation.

The three governments have targeted increases in womens labour force participation rates by 2025 of 5 percentage points in Iraq and Lebanon and 9 percentage points in Jordan.

If increases of five points were to be met and continued for a further decade, annual economic growth would increase by 1.6 percentage points in Iraq, 2.5 points in Jordan, and 1.1 points in Lebanon by 2035, the report said.

Updated: June 26, 2020 03:48 PM

See the original post:
Covid-19 blow to female workforce in Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon - The National