Omani Women in the Labor Force: Facts and Challenges
Sawsan Dawood Al-Lawati
Technical Office of the National Population Committee, Ministry of National Economy, Muscat, Oman

Although Omani women's participation rate in the labor force has increased significantly from around 6% in 1996 to almost 20% in 2008, the rates according to the age groups show that the labor market do not attract Omani women for enough time. The participation rates increase to around 38% and 31% in the age groups (25-29) and (30-34) respectively and decreases sharply after that. In fact, half the employed women are working in the public sector, and more than one third of the employed women are working as scientific, technical and human subject technicians.

This paper describes some of the characteristics of the employed Omani women and highlights some of the possible reasons for them to quite work force in less than 20 years of work. It will also represent some of the updated information about the economically active Omani women based on the 2010 census.

The participation rate of the Omani woman increasd significantly in 2008; Oman women tend to quite labor market in less than 20 years of work

Biography: She is the Manager of the technical Office of the National Population Committee. She has been working for the last 8 years in formulating the population policy in Oman and monitoring it where gender is one of the fields of interest. She had participated in some studies focusing on the labor force characteristics in Oman. Her main interest now is monitoring the link between the educational system in Oman and the requirements of the labor market as an important aspect of the integrated social policy.