Saudi Arabia: women’s participation in the economy

Interview with Lama Al Sulaiman, Board Member of Rolaco and Vice Chairwoman of Jeddah Chamber of Commerce

First of all, how do you see the role of women in the business community in Saudi Arabia? What have been the developments? Do you see positive changes?

Women’s participation in the economy comes under a few sectors. For a long time we have had women participating in family business because of course a lot of women inherit the business from their father with their brothers and the rest of the family. In that sense women are active in either overlooking or becoming shareholders and many times becoming board members of the family business. However, we do not have enough female board members in the family businesses.

Worldwide, women joining boards of companies has been happening very slow. With the Millennium Goals in Saudi Arabia we are trying to increase the number of women on the boards of these companies.

Secondly, there are women that set up their own businesses. You will find that women entrepreneurs here are not a large number, only 4% of businesses here are owned by women; this is because about ten years ago the legislations and regulations were not in place to support women in business. Those women that did start businesses really went against the flow.

However, for the past 5 years, the legislations are now equal for men and women and women have moved into the business world. The challenges for women in the business world are usually in financing and marketing. One of the other challenges is women taking risk. Women will tend to stop at a certain size of business, as they do not know how to take the business to a second phase of growth.

Over the past 3 years more than 350 thousand women entered the workforce. This development helped increase women participation to 17% of the workforce, which is still a low number. The legislation has changed in the past 5 years and there has been huge support from the government to increase women’s participation in the workforce.

Women traditionally found employment in the education and health sector. Five years ago 80% of women employed were in the education sector. Today all opportunities are open for women; however the introduction of women into other sectors has been quite slow.

A lot of the legislation put women into the workforce by identifying some jobs as women only. For example anything to do with selling apparel for women has to have women salespersons. This transition has been very much resisted, particularly by the private sector because it needed to restructure and hire new people.

The economy need higher participation of women. 60% of the university graduates are women and these women need jobs and to participate. Today with the inflation that is happening around the world, single income families are difficult to sustain.  

How do you see the future?

Saudi Arabia has always been a conservative country. In the 80s, during the boom years, women did not feel the urge to push to enter into the economy. There were challenges and resistance when women first started enter the education. Families were worried that their daughters or female family members would go out to work and would not be protected in a patriarchal society. However, once it happened, everyone was ready to send their daughters to school.

Then the education sector got over saturated and women started entering the health care sector, as the sector needed more women. Many leading women previously worked in the health sector.

The medical and health field gave women confidence that they were good enough to compete in the workforce. Universities were then seeing more women graduate but there were not enough job opportunities for these women.

After the health sector opened up, the finance sector then opened up as banks found that they needed women, because many women inherited property. The banks started opening women’s sections because women needed to go on their own to the banks to see what their balances were, their budgets, investment plans etc.

Today, women are graduating and there are a lot that have got scholarships abroad and who are coming back to work in diverse fields.

What is the unemployment rate amongst women?

The unemployment rate in Saudi Arabia for women is 32% and 6% for men. 80% of the unemployment are women. 66% work in the public sector, 30% in the private sector and 4% are businesswomen.

There is of course a cultural problem. In a recent survey of 3000 people in society, 54% said that they wanted segregated environments to work in, and 46% had no problem working in mixed environments. Even when they are ready to work in mixed environments, they still say they prefer segregated offices.

350 thousand women joined the workforce over the last 3 years. However, the trend is in decline. The companies do not know how to hire women. They are a bit worried about how to handle working with women, whether they should have separate offices etc.

At the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce, we have a centre called the Khadijah Bint Khuwaylid Women’s Centre to support companies to employ women. We work with companies and show them how it can be so easy to create the right environment for women.

I am on the board of a family company called Rolaco Holding and we have been extremely successful in hiring women.  

Taking about the executive level and leadership, what has been the participation of women on the executive level and on the boards?

There is a study that has been done by one of the major consultancy companies called the Pearl Initiative. The study is regarding women in leadership positions in the GCC. They found that participation is quite low.

There is an obvious glass ceiling but, in my option, the delayed entry of women into the workforce is going to delay the women pushing for more leadership positions.

The male dominant society often resists having more females in leadership positions. However, the new generation will push for women leaders. There is going to be a change.

How do you see the changes in respect to the day to day hindrances of women entering the workforce for instance having a male or female driver or mixing the public spaces?

With more women participating, more women will seek the best for themselves. One of the biggest challenges for women today is transportation. I am also finding that a lot of young men are finding transportation a problem because not all can afford a car. Public transportation in Saudi Arabia is a number one priority today.

Transportation is a challenge for working people today: to be able to move from one place to another. The main cities are growing so big that it becomes an issue. Transportation within these large cities is not easy. The government is putting it on its priority list because the metro, trains and buses are coming.

The Ministry of Labour is also working on a subsidy to be given to women that are in work. This will be a transportation subsidy that may even be higher than a male´s transportation subsidy. Usually men get subsidies from their companies, who give them an allowance for transportation as part of their salary. The Ministry of Labour is contemplating giving women a government subsidy for transportation.

You come from a much respected family, the Sulaiman family; can you talk about your family and the family business?

My grandfather Abdullah Sulaiman was a tradesman who moved around between Saudi Arabia, India and Syria. My father started the family business that I am part of. It is a company called Rolaco. It started with cement and shipping. Today, Rolaco is a diverse holding company. One of our major things is that we provide everything needed for construction companies.

I have been on the board for the past 5 years. It has been quite an interesting experience. I am actually a biochemist and a nutritionist. Moving into the business field was a significant transition for me. I had to learn very fast about business, economy and finance. Today, diversity on the board is very clear in our company. This environment helped foster more innovative atmosphere.

For the past three years we have been restructuring Rolaco Holding to make it a more sustainable family business. We are four daughters and one son, so as you see we have women power in the family. My sisters are also working in different sectors. We have all become participants in the business and the women’s participation in the family business is mostly the will of our father. The fathers that support their daughters to share in the business from an early age are those that actually bring up women that are confident and ready to lead.

What will be the economic advantages of letting more women into the workforce and liberalising this aspect. What will be the benefits for the business environment in Saudi Arabia? What could be the disadvantages?

In my opinion, there are neither advantages nor disadvantages. When the telephone came, people thought there was a devil talking to them through the phone!

People are afraid of anything that is new. People only thought of the worst case scenario, but we live in a country that is transitioning into living with the 21st century technologies. What is happening to Saudi Arabia today is modernisation.

Single income families are not viable in today’s economic environment and with more demands on the quality of life. 30% of society cannot take care of the remaining 70%.

Women have become highly educated. Women are working today to develop Saudi Arabia, to develop better future for the second generation. 80% of our workforce are non-Saudis; that is not fair to Saudis, it is not fair to our children.

Women need to be on all kinds of boards, not only family boards. Educated women have stronger will, want to lead and make decisions.  However, Saudi women are still conservative. Out of the 85% that is unemployed 62% is not seeking employment and 38% is looking for jobs. The priority is to have a family.

Saudi women are the same as all other women around the world. I hope that women will help to transform the work environment, introduce flexible hours and create more diversity.

Today, because of the high unemployment that is happening, even in Europe, people are looking for more hours that are flexible. When you start looking for more flexible hours, better maternity leave, better day care, etc. you find that you create equilibrium in the family.

I believe you will find that even people outside of Saudi Arabia are going to enjoy life more when the work environment is completely restructured.