Economic and Legislative Factors that Hinder Women’s
Empowerment and Ability to Assume Leadership Positions

Women in the Arab world in general and in Jordan  in particular face numerous challenges, especially  with regard to the political, economic and social  conditions the Middle East and North Africa Region  is currently facing, as women are the weakest link  facing these conditions.  4 Despite the intense efforts to educate women in  certain communities, these efforts failed to create  a significant movement toward in depth change in  the conventional image of women. there is a need  to develop tools and expand groups targeted by  political and feminist leaderships to bring about  faster, greater and more effective change.  Challenges facing women are classified into two  categories. First, the challenges that result from  traditional and cultural norms, and second the  challenges related to applied legislation, and those  related to the level of government’s adherence to  related international treaties and conventions.  In addition, the greatest challenge faced by women is  the societal context, culture and traditions , including  gender-based violence against women both politically  and socially, within the family or society as a whole.  There are also economic challenges concerning  the lack of job opportunity and high unemployment  rates. According to the Department of Statistics1 ,  women’s economic activity was 14.9% while that of  males reached 53.1%.  Non-working women rated  33.6% compared to males at 21.2% according to the  employment and unemployment survey.  Realizing the significance of women’s participation  in development, several official and unofficial bodies  in Jordan seek to enhance and improve women’s  empowerment and their leading roles to represent  women in various relevant sectors. Therefore, it is  expected that women are to play significant roles,  one way or another, in the structural development  of  society when politically and economically  empowered.  In spite of all the efforts concerning economic  empowerment, Jordan’s rank remains low in the  Global Gender Gap Report 2 . The report includes  studies of four areas including inequality between  men and women in 130 major and startup corporates  around the world concerning economic participation,  opportunity, education, political empowerment,  health and  life rate. The following table shows  Jordan’s rank in the past four reports on gender in  general and in economic participation and political  empowerment issued in (2018, 2020, 2021,2022).

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