Schooling and Women's Employability in the Arab Region (original) (raw)

A notable phenomenon in the Middle East is the growing number of educated and skilled women who are unemployed at disproportionate rates when compared to their male compatriots (Karam and Afiouni, 2014; Karam and Jamali, 2013; Moghadam, 2004; ILO, 2016). In contrast to the Leaking Pipeline described in many national contexts in Europe and North America (see Blickenstaff, 2005), it appears that in the Middle East, the pipeline is experiencing ever-increasing pressure-what has been referred to as the Bursting Pipeline (Karam and Afiouni, 2014). The term Bursting Pipeline captures the growing situation in the region where more and more women are equipped with knowledge, skills, and abilities, but are unable to secure employment (see Karam and Afiouni, 2014). This special issue aims to focus the conversation specifically around phenomenon of the Bursting Pipeline and the pipeline block. In doing this, our aim is to stimulate reflections on multi-level factors that: (1) work to maintain and augment the pipeline block and (2) can help to dissipate the block both from within and outside of the employer organizations allowing thus for the Bursting Pipeline of women to enter into meaningful, formal employment. We therefore call for examining the pipeline block and strategies to dissipate the block from various angles and at various levels of analysis including: the international level (e.g., intergovernmental organizations and inclusion agendas); macro-level (e.g., government initiatives, public sector reform, employment policies, economic and social development agendas); and the level of the organization (e.g., HR engagement initiatives, affirmative action, career development plans). We encourage theoretical and empirical exploration of initiatives to address, overcome or sidestep sources of this pipeline block both within as well as outside of organizations. These studies should stretch the discussion beyond descriptions of patriarchal biases, gender stereotypes and generalized discussions of the neo-patriarchal states in the region. We welcome manuscripts that seek to cross disciplinary boundaries in order to develop new perspectives and novel insights about women's employment in the Middle East. We expect manuscripts to bring strong empirical contributions that develop and extend theory as well as more conceptual papers that integrate critique and expand existing theory, and that suggest social action and policy-making that aims to improve the working lives of women in the region. We encourage the use of methods that are appropriate to both the research context and research questions and therefore welcome both qualitative and quantitative methods of investigation and analysis. We also welcome papers that combine different empirical methods and which explore different levels of analysis.