Tag: FLFP

Educated Emirati fathers want more for their daughters

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First published in:

Pennington, R. (2017, April 23). . The National. https://www.thenational.ae/uae/educated-emirati-fathers-want-more-for-their-daughters-uae-study-shows-1.82837

The more educated a father is, the more likely he is to encourage his daughter to take up a high-powered career, a study suggests

Researchers from United Arab Emirates University are studying the influence of parents in their children’s careers. And an Emirati child with parents in the private sector is much more likely to hold similar aspirations, it says. Before Mariam Al Zaabi had finished university, her father urged her to become a self-sufficient, professional woman. “He wanted me to be as strong as the men,” said Ms Al Zaabi. “So he said, ‘you need to work and you need to go and earn your degree’.” Her experience is in line with the two main findings of the study into the influence of parents in their children’s careers, by researchers at UAE University.

Academics polled 335 female Emirati students to see what influenced their career intentions. Dr Emilie Rutledge, associate professor at the university’s College of Business and Economics, hoped the two findings could help with Emiratisation policy. “Encouraging more males to undertake tertiary education and continuing with the policy of subsidising the employment costs of nationals will pay longer-term dividends in terms of female labour force participation,” Dr Rutledge said. An unexpected finding was the lack of influence mothers had over children’s career choice. “Mothers, irrespective of their educational attainment level, had no significant influence in the career decision making process of their daughters,” said Dr Rutledge.

The survey also asked students whether they wanted to work in the public or private sectors, to which 78.5 per cent responded public. “Furthermore, 29.6 per cent strongly agreed with the statement that they would ‘wait’ for a government job, as opposed to taking a private sector job in the interim,” the study found. The respondents also said that if the prospective job were “interesting,” the employer offered maternity leave and employed women role models, it would increase women’s likelihood of entering the workforce, the study found. “The job being interesting was ranked as the most important and this was subsequently found to significantly increase the likelihood of labour market entry,” the researchers wrote. While salary was also identified as a factor, “it did not turn out to have a significant relationship” with choice of career.

Emirati women and the labour market

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Dr Emilie Rutledge, associate professor of Economics at UAE University, at the lecture on Parental Influence on Female Vocational in the Arabian Gulf at Mohammed bin Rashid School of Government.

Parents play critical role in Emirati women’s career choices, UAE study shows

The research team was led by Dr Emilie Rutledge, associate professor of economics at UAE University, who presented their findings to academics at the Mohammed bin Rashid School of Government (MBRSG) on Tuesday.

“Parental influence has a significant role on a given female’s likelihood of seeking to enter the labour market post-graduation,” she said. “Parental support reduces what women perceive as cultural barriers to employment.”

Sixty-eight per cent of the women said their parents influenced their decisions about careers, and 80 per cent said they preferred to work in the public sector. Forty-six per cent said they felt it was the Government’s responsibility to find them work in the public sector. Working in education, the civil service and police were deemed the most culturally “acceptable” careers for an Emirati woman, although areas such as advertising, marketing and pharmaceuticals were deemed more “attractive”.

“However, if parents are engaged in the vocational decision-making process, the female is more likely to consider exploring opportunities in the private sector,” Dr Rutledge said.

For Emiratisation to be successful, there must be more emphasis on these other fields rather than banking, human resources and finance, which the women did not consider interesting or attractive, Dr Rutledge said.

“Being in a gender-segregated environment was not as important to the girls as the salary or the job being interesting was, even if society or parents as a whole object to this,” she said.

Dr Rutledge cited holiday time and maternity leave as important, both of which were more attractive in the public than private sectors.

Ensuring the women return to the workplace through flexible working times and better maternity benefits was vital.

“A lot of females leave the workplace when they have a family because of the poor provisions, so they simply don’t go back and in turn, they lose their skills,” she said.

A father’s level of education was key in determining how his daughters would be guided. Fathers with degrees are more likely to support and encourage women to seek employment.

“Private-sector career paths are more attractive if the parent already works in the private sector,” Dr Rutledge said.

“This is of importance as there is merit to incentivising more Emirati males into higher education for the long-term participation of Emirati women in the labour market.”

Women graduate at a 3 to 1 ratio from UAE federal universities. Dr Maryam Salem Al Marashad has been a long-standing academic at UAE University since she graduated with the first batch of students in 1977. She left her post as dean of students two years ago but is still active in academia. She said a husband’s influence could not be underestimated.

“We see many girls at UAEU get married in their third year, so by the time they are going to the labour market, it is not only the family but their husband – she is stuck with an answer from her husband that she can or cannot work here or there.”

Geography will also sway a woman’s choices, she said. “In Fujairah when I go to my bank, the whole first row is full of Emirati women who are supporting their families and are interested to work,” she said. “In Abu Dhabi or Dubai where there are many more opportunities, they can afford to be more picky.”

MBRSG’s head of gender and public policy, Ghalia Gargani, said more research was needed for the long-term participation of Emirati women in the job market. Only 9 per cent of the labour force is Emirati, a fifth of them women. “We need to think of ways to have policies for both men and women to balance their work and life and the responsibilities that come with their culture here,” she said. “It’s very relevant to research we’re doing here on the family unit.”

Future of Emirati women often determined by parents

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First published in:

Swan, M. (2014, January 29). Future of Emirati women often determined by parents. The National. https://www.thenational.ae/uae/education/future-of-emirati-women-often-determined-by-parents-1.687617

Parental attitudes can reduce the cultural barriers that keep Emirati women from entering the workplace.

A study polled 335 female citizens between the ages of 15 and 24 from across the country. The research team was led by Dr Emilie Rutledge, associate professor of economics at UAE University, who presented their findings to academics at the Mohammed bin Rashid School of Government (MBRSG) on Tuesday.

“Parental influence has a significant role on a given female’s likelihood of seeking to enter the labour market post-graduation,” she said. “Parental support reduces what women perceive as cultural barriers to employment.”

Sixty-eight per cent of the women said their parents influenced their decisions about careers, and 80 per cent said they preferred to work in the public sector.

Forty-six per cent said they felt it was the Government’s responsibility to find them work in the public sector.

Working in education, the civil service and police were deemed the most culturally “acceptable” careers for an Emirati woman, although areas such as advertising, marketing and pharmaceuticals were deemed more “attractive”.

“However, if parents are engaged in the vocational decision-making process, the female is more likely to consider exploring opportunities in the private sector,” Dr Rutledge said.

For Emiratisation to be successful, there must be more emphasis on these other fields rather than banking, human resources and finance, which the women did not consider interesting or attractive, Dr Rutledge said.

“Being in a gender-segregated environment was not as important to the girls as the salary or the job being interesting was, even if society or parents as a whole object to this,” she said.

Dr Rutledge cited holiday time and maternity leave as important, both of which were more attractive in the public than private sectors.

Ensuring the women return to the workplace through flexible working times and better maternity benefits was vital.

“A lot of females leave the workplace when they have a family because of the poor provisions, so they simply don’t go back and in turn, they lose their skills,” she said.

A father’s level of education was key in determining how his daughters would be guided. Fathers with degrees are more likely to support and encourage women to seek employment.

“Private-sector career paths are more attractive if the parent already works in the private sector,” Dr Rutledge said.

“This is of importance as there is merit to incentivising more Emirati males into higher education for the long-term participation of Emirati women in the labour market.”

Women graduate at a 3 to 1 ratio from UAE federal universities.

Dr Maryam Salem Al Marashad has been a long-standing academic at UAE University since she graduated with the first batch of students in 1977.

She left her post as dean of students two years ago but is still active in academia. She said a husband’s influence could not be underestimated.

“We see many girls at UAEU get married in their third year, so by the time they are going to the labour market, it is not only the family but their husband – she is stuck with an answer from her husband that she can or cannot work here or there.”

Geography will also sway a woman’s choices, she said.

“In Fujairah when I go to my bank, the whole first row is full of Emirati women who are supporting their families and are interested to work,” she said. “In Abu Dhabi or Dubai where there are many more opportunities, they can afford to be more picky.”

MBRSG’s head of gender and public policy, Ghalia Gargani, said more research was needed for the long-term participation of Emirati women in the job market.

Only 9 per cent of the labour force is Emirati, a fifth of them women.

“We need to think of ways to have policies for both men and women to balance their work and life and the responsibilities that come with their culture here,” she said. “It’s very relevant to research we’re doing here on the family unit.”

Arabian Gulf Labour Markets: Women are ‘underutilised’

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First published in:

Qabbani, B. (2011, February 1). Emiratis ‘must be steered into private sector’. The National. https://www.thenational.ae/uae/women-are-underutilised-1.422350

A recent study suggests that although women are better skilled than men, it is harder for them to find work.

“Female nationals are a valuable human capital resource in the UAE – one that is significantly underutilised,” said Dr Emilie Rutledge, assistant professor of economics at UAE University.

“Existing evidence suggests females find it much harder to find employment than their male national counterparts, yet paradoxically they typically have much higher levels of educational attainment,” she said.

She said officials should implement more gender-aware labour policies to correct the imbalance.

“While labour nationalisation policies have acted to increase female labour force participation, many more gender-aware policies need to be implemented,” she said.

A paper to which Dr Rutledge contributed, titled “Women, labour market nationalisation policies and human resource development in the Arab Gulf States,” will be published in the peer-reviewed journal Human Resource Development International in April.

Four researchers, including three in the UAE and one in Saudi Arabia, collaborated on the paper and interviewed policy makers who are directly involved in the Emiratisation and Saudisation processes.

Dr Rutledge said Emirati women need to be more willing to travel in order to take full advantage of their employment opportunities.

Other notions that need addressing involve family constraints, such as parents who frown on their daughters’ working in a mixed-gender environment, or the perception that women who work in the private sector only do so because they do not have adequate wasta(connections), explained Dr Rutledge.

“Some private-sector employers are unwilling to recruit from [among women], either because they believe it might be costly in infrastructural terms or because it would be costly if the newly recruited national female employee was to be ‘offended’ in some way by an incumbent non-national employee,” Dr Rutledge said.

The study stresses that labour nationalisation bodies need to improve their monitoring and evaluation of the consequence of policies in a gender-sensitive way.

Political reforms that have resulted in women being appointed to senior positions can broadly be seen as part of the process to “normalise” the role of women in the workplace, the researchers state.

“Increasing women’s participation will depend not only on their motivation, but also on the ability of society to accept new roles for women and remove existing barriers to economic integration,” said fellow researcher Dr Fatima al Shamsi, secretary general at UAE University and faculty member at the Economics Department.

Dr al Shamsi, who has also served as a consultant to the UAE National Human Resource Development and Employment Authority, added, “Above all, women should not shy away from the kind of work that was previously reserved for men, and they should impose their skills and education on the labour market, and not let the market impose the marginal and secondary positions on them.”

Interviewees also said conditions in the private sector – like a lack of child care, flexible working hours and length of maternity leave – were also contributing factors that needed to be tackled to increase female participation.

“There is over-representation of women in lower-paid and non-decision making positions,” Dr al Shamsi said.