Rising poverty and high unemployment limit the choices young men and women in Yemen can make about their vocations. Although majorities are still satisfied with their personal freedom to decide what they do with their lives the differences between men and women in Yemen are clearly visible.
Gallup’s surveys of 15- to 29-year-old Yemenis for the Silatech Index in 2009 and 2010 found 71 percent of young men and 54 percent of young women were satisfied with their freedom to choose their own destiny. The gender gap, however, underscores different challenges young Yemeni women face.
“Given the recent unrest in Yemen, it’s important to note that these data pre-date the still unfolding situation and that this question assesses people’s feelings about their freedom to explore their own paths in life, more so than how they feel about the level of freedom in their country as a whole,” explained the research.
Lubna is today a married Yemeni woman from Sana’a and a mother of five children. She barely completed her high school before she was married off to a relative.
“I was the top student of my class. My teachers anticipated a great future for me. I too dared to dream of becoming a doctor or an engineer but all came to an end when I graduated from school sixteen years ago,” she said bitterly. “It did not make a difference to my father that I was the top student of my class. In our family university education was not acceptable during my time. Now things have changed.”
Some of Lubna’s younger sisters are in university, and she vows that all her daughters will have the careers of their choices.
Ramzya Al-Eryani director of the Yemeni Women’s Union says that the situation of Yemeni women has changed today, although there are some challenges that affect both men and women’s ability to make choices about their lives.
Yemen has made positive steps toward the Millennium Development Goal of promoting gender equality and empowering women. However, a great deal of work remains before the country bridges the still-wide chasms in young women’s access to education, their participation in the workforce, and political participation.
The United Nations’ Development Programme reported in 2010 that female school enrollment rates have steadily improved, as has the awareness of how important education is for girls, but education remains elusive for many young Yemeni women.
Seventeen percent of young women, for example, said they have a secondary education; this is in sharp contrast to nearly half of young Yemeni men (47 percent) with the same level of education. The vast majority of young Yemeni women (81 percent) Gallup surveyed said they have elementary educations or less schooling, compared with nearly half of young Yemeni men (48percent ) in the same situation.
Studies conducted in Yemen by the Status of Women in the Middle East and North Africa Project (SWMENA) in 2010 suggest many young women and young men desire more education than they are getting.
Three in 10 young men (30 percent) between the ages of 18 and 24 and less than one-quarter of young women (23 percent) said they have all the education they want. More than one-third of young women (36 percent) and more than half of young men (55 percent) said they would like to complete a college or graduate degree.
The SWMENA survey also suggests that young women’s career aspirations are related to their education. Nearly one-quarter of women younger than age 25 without any formal schooling intend to pursue a career, considerably lower than the 41 percent who have completed primary school who plan to do the same. Nearly three in four (74 percent) of those who have finished secondary school would like to seek a career.
Tawfeek Ahmed had to let go of his dream in travelling abroad to perfect his English in order to run the family auto maintenance workshop.
“It was good money, and there was no one in the family who can do it. My father needed me and I had to either let my family down or postpone my dream indefinitely,” said Tawfeek. “Naturally I chose the later.”
Perhaps hampered by their relative lack of education in addition to other economic and cultural barriers, Gallup found young Yemeni women’s participation in the workforce was low in 2010. Eighty-two percent of young women were out of the workforce -- meaning they were not employed in the last seven days, neither for an employer nor for themselves and were not looking for work, and/or were not available to start work. In contrast, 27percent of young men were out of the workforce.
It’s possible that many young Yemeni women who were not in the workforce were full-time students, disabled, or homemakers, but the latter is more likely because 48 percent of the 15- to 29-year-old women surveyed were married.
Further, these young women already had an average of four children younger than age 15 living in their households.
Implications
Despite gains on the education front, as of 2010, Yemen is still not on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal of eliminating gender disparities in primary, secondary, and higher education by 2015. These disparities, so evident in Gallup’s data, may be keeping young Yemeni women from getting the education they desire and is potentially limiting their career opportunities. This, in turn, may be fueling young Yemeni women’s frustrations with the freedom they have to choose what they do with their lives.
Economic and social obstacles line young Yemeni women’s paths to education, but investing in young women’s education is also an investment in Yemen’s future generations. Half of young men (50 percent) and 57 percent of young women believe children in their country do not get the chance to learn and grow every day. If women, as the primary caregivers, are educated, they can model this for their children and siblings and improve their chances.
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