Why Jordan is set to be a major technology hub
Jordan is making head way into becoming the number one tech hub in all of the Middle East and Africa, but they’ll only reach this goal by tapping into women’s employment.
This beautiful, historic country is home to 4.3 million people. Located in the Middle East, bordering Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Israel. Jordan is well know for it’s capital city Amman, Petra: One of the seven wonders of the world, The Dead Sea of Jordan and my personal favorite: Jordanian cuisine.
Aside from all that, Jordan is in the top five Middle Eastern countries who’s millennials have higher education. Jordanian Universities even rank top 20 in the Arab world. Since the 1900s, Jordan’s government has been pushing out policies to move the economy towards elevation. From changes in laws, revamping universities and making peace with neighboring countries.
With all these admirable changes in the right directions, there’s still a gap. Only 14% of women are in the work force and unemployment is highest among those with a tertiary education by 24%, compared to other levels of education. It gets worse comparing the situation to men because there’s a huge fracture between men and women. The unemployment of males with a bachelor’s degree and higher education is at 23%, but 78.2% for females. Jordan must fill this void fast to truly succeed and become the central mecca of technology.
There are a few reasons why Jordanian women aren’t getting employed as much as men.
1. Gender discrimination, 2 in 10 companies will actually turn women down for this reason. The fact is in Jordan it’s against the law to disseminate against somebodies gender while hiring, so employers will use other excuses such as lack of experience to deny women jobs. This is problematic because a man can apply for the same job and get hired with the same exact credentials as her.
2. Women participation in the workforce in Jordan is extremely affected by social norms. For example when a women is married it’s looked as it’s best for her to be working.
3. In the same breath some women also do not work because they say that there’s no need for them to work. One income in their household is enough.
You may be thinking not everyone wants to have a career and a full time job, and that true for some women. However in Jordan, 60% of all unemployed women do want to work. In addition, in the technology sector, women are already contributing to 12% of Jordan’s GDP through the ICT sector (information and communication technology). Developing into one of the leading sectors in the region, with more than 600 active companies, directly employing about 16,000 employees, and an overall contribution to about 84,000 jobs in the wider economy. Jordan’s ICT is dominated by males and is not reaching it’s fullest potential without more women entering the space.
I wanted to gain a better understanding of the women who were eager to be active participants in Jordan’s growing technology advancements. I spoke to Noora, a 23 year old student at Yarmouk University studying nanotechnology and digital marketing.
We talked about how highly educated women are in Jordan and how people take pride in that. She also touched on wanting to further her career after finishing university. Noora is currently a full time student and does not have a job because her family supports her financially. She would love to have a job that relates to her major yet she hasn’t had any luck.
It would be extremely beneficial for her to obtain an internship at a tech company or an organization. However securing an internship is a competitive game, especially as a women. Most of the jobs she comes across are retail jobs and assistant jobs. The people who work those jobs and go to school are the ones who aren’t as finally stable like Noora.
She’s optimistic about the future and would one day love to be the founder of her own tech startup and even open up more jobs for young women like her.
The point is women are ambitious and ready to work, Jordan has to take advantage of that and they need to do it fast before they fall behind other countries aiming to reach the same goals.
“If Jordan does not close this gender gap in its workforce, it is not just its women that will miss out on valuable opportunities for personal fulfillment and financial independence, but the country will face a reduced potential GDP growth of 0.5 to 0.9 percent per year. Jordan will miss out on the “growth premium” that female employment can yield to per capita income.” — Brookings.edu
Hey, I’m Maryam, a young entrepreneur whose based in Boston. I’m the owner of MarAmour.Co, a cosmetics brand, and I’m a huge nerd who’s constantly learning about emerging tech.
Connect with me on LinkedIn say hey; let me know what future content I should post & feedback is always appreciated.
