AMMAN — The
International Labor Organization (ILO)
said in a report that women’s participation in the Jordanian labor market is
one of the lowest in the world, at 14 percent, compared with 66 percent
commanded by men.
اضافة اعلان
Head of the Amman-based Workers’ House Hamada Abu
Nijmeh told
Jordan News that “based on the data by the Department of
Statistics, the average monthly wage of males in the private sector amount to
JD642, compared with JD544 for females.”
“The wage gap in the private sector, according to
gender, is considered high as it reaches JD98 in favor of males”, he added.
He said that the “gender wage gap is measured by
calculating the difference between the average hourly wages of a female worker
with the average hourly wage of a male worker.”
The most notable reason for the wage inequality “is
the prevailing belief that the man is the breadwinner for the family, and that
women tend to work in traditional professions only, such as education and
health”, Abu Nijmeh said.
He said the continuation of the prevailing “unfair
wages” represents an explicit defect in the rules of justice at the work level,
“weakening the ability of women to face economic burdens and future challenges,
in addition to weakening their economic independence”.
“It also points to the weak representation of women
in senior positions in the public and private sectors,” he pointed out.
He said that “the participation of one woman in the
Jordanian labor market means an annual addition of JD13,000 to the economy and
an increase in the purchasing power of the whole family.”
“This contributes to reviving the markets and the
national economy too,” he added.
Ahmad Awad, head of the
Jordan Labor Watch, told
Jordan
News that “unfair wages are not limited to gender only, but also to
nationality.”
“We should notice
unfair wages among Jordanian and foreign workers, this harms the economy and
reinforces the wage gap,” he said. “This is one of the forms of human rights
violations and abuse of basic principles of workers’ rights.”
Awad stressed that “this poses a threat to the
economy, since women’s economic participation decreases, especially in the
private sector.”
He said that the Jordanian economy “is weak for many
reasons, most notably for the weak participation of women in the labor market”.
Economic analysts Jawad Al-Anani told
Jordan News “I am skeptical about figures that show the percentage of women’s participation
in the labor market. Some women work as freelancers, for instance, and they are
not included in the statistics.”
He said that “women who work in freelancing business
have no rights.”
“If there were studies on productivity, we would
have found out that women are more productive than men and that inequality
creates a feeling of dissatisfaction and reduces the incentive for
development,” he noted.
Head of the General Federation of Jordanian Trade
Unions
Mazen Al-Maaytah told
Jordan News that the “imbalance in wages
among workers, according to their gender and nationality, is considered an
infringement on social justice, and this in turn affects the national economy.”
He explained that “justice motivates the worker to
produce and contributes to the flow of money to the state, as well as enhances
its exports, thus attracts foreign currency.”
He stressed that the “role of women is important in
society since they have the ability to do a lot of work.”
He said that “the idea that the man is the only
breadwinner for the family prevailed in previous decades, but today women are
the ones who support the family, or play a crucial role in it.”
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