A study of factors that contribute to the discrepancy between the high number of women receiving college education and the low number of women participating in the labor force in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

The basic research question was why Saudi women are not working despite their educations and the government's need for their services (Saudi Arabia is the largest importer of foreign labor in the Arab world). With the recession period in the 1980s it became apparent that there was a pressing need for educated women to use their educational degrees appropriately and to contribute to the work force, thus meeting the women's increased personal needs and the government's need for labor. The research focused on the changes in modern Saudi women's roles and the ensuing problems. Empirical examination based on the concepts of modernization (particularly Riggs's prismatic theory), cultural lag, and status inconsistency theories framed the research. The research also examined Muslim women's roles and attempted to explain how in highly traditional societies, such as Saudi Arabia, religious and cultural norms suppress certain aspects of the modernization process by enforcing the role of women. Qualitative methods were used to conduct in-depth interviews with sixty-nine professional Saudi women (workers and nonworkers) in the city of (L) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study examined factors such as professional work opportunities; motivational factors for seeking a college education and for choosing not to work outside the home; and professional employment; social restraints; degree of family support; religious, modernization, and individual factors. Findings indicated that the importance of motherhood and wife roles, women's motivations for college educations for goals other than careers, lack of economic need before the recession in the 1980s, absence of employment opportunities (women's jobs were saturated), limited fields of education available for women (education, social work, and recently, medicine), and religious restraints were the most important factors that influenced women not to work outside their homes. Implications for practice include a need for increased services to assist women in balancing the demands of their roles. To solve transportation and childcare problems for working women, car pooling and childcare centers should be provided. Employment services, should be created such as job banks as well as full-time and part-time job sharing.