Exploring women career advancement into management level in the State of Qatar

1.0)

Introduction

It has always been the general perception that women who focus on their careers in order to reach management level find it difficult to balance work and family life. Although there is no evidence to support this perception, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) (2004) suggests that women still perform a bigger share of household tasks and childrearing, thus at certain stage in their career/lives, they usually have to make a decision between full time work and family or prioritise one over the other. Galinsky et al (2003) found out in their study that in order to have stable and established careers, eighteen per cent of women delayed marriage and twelve per cent decided not to have children at all. Their research also showed that the womans career was more likely to be put on hold or adjusted at some stage in order to cater for their family. Thus hindering or at best delaying their progression into a managerial or leadership role. According to the ILO (2004), finding the balance between family and work is an issue for women and men alike, but in patriarchical societies of Arab Gulf States like Qatar (Abdy, 2005), where women are expected to take care of their homes and families, the problem is much more severe for women. Al-Lamky (2007) points out that in Arab societies, the womans place is considered to be at home and the man (or husband) is expected to provide for the family. Extant literature (Al-Lamky, 2007; Mostafa 2005) show that even when women participate in the workforce, their jobs are relegated to the lower end of organisational hierarchies e.g. support or clerical while the career ladder to managerial or leadership positions are usually reserved for men. Why is it the case? What factors influence this structure? What are the barriers that stop womens careers from advancing to management? What family friendly human resources management policies are available to assist Qatari women in climbing the corporate ladder? These are just a few of the questions that need to be answered. The purpose of this essay is to describe the state of career advancement for women in Qatar and proffer HRM policies that can be introduced to assist or help them to climb the corporate ladder. In order to do this, this essay will view the current state of womens career advancement globally and eventually narrowing it down to the Middle East and Qatar in particular. Furthermore, an insight into the factors that will aid womens career advancement in Qatar will be provided. The current barriers to career advancement for Qatari women will

also be pin-pointed. Finally, this paper will identify family friendly HRM policies that will aid womens career development in Qatar. 2.0) State of career advancement for women

Following the Second World War, there has been an increase in womens participation in the global workforce which has resulted in a growing interest in the study of womens career development or aspirations (Domenico and Jones, 2006; Omar and Davidson, 2001). Osipow and Fitzgerald (1996) notes that in spite of the growing interest, very little attention has been given to the factors that influence womens career advancement. In some cases where the topic has been explored, the focus has been on women in professional occupations (e.g law and medicine) or women in managerial jobs already and very little study has been done on the career goals and advancement of females in a none-managerial roles but aim to develop their careers to management level (Hite and McDonald, 2003). Though there is evidence that more women are pursuing careers in management due to their increasing roles in the economy (Davidson and Burke, 2000; Omar and Davidson, 2001), it is heavily influenced by race, socioeconomic status, parents occupation, educational level, culture and religion (Domenico and Jones, 2006). For example, Bayley (1992) found out that white females had lower career aspirations than black females in America. However, it should be noted that her research was based on college students and not women already in the workforce. Another notable study was Mostafa (2005) who highlights that in Arab societies, the traditional view is that a womans role is primarily to take care of the household, hence Arab families usually focus on educating their sons rather than their daughters. From an organisational viewpoint, women are viewed as unreliable and not serious with their careers, because of family commitments and thus their career development are not taken seriously. Wentling (1996) concluded that most women lacked a career strategy because they considered career and family choices at the same time. Twenge (1997) disagrees with this view and points out that statistics suggests a trend toward a more broad-minded attitude towards women within organisational contexts. Although attitudes towards women are changing for the better, and more women are advancing to management level, there is still a considerable difference among countries (Omar and Davidson, 2001). Statistics from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Review (1998) show that the gap between women in employment and women in management

has narrowed in countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, South Korea and Turkey. There is need to emphasize that the reason for this growth in women managers is the introduction of various organisation based HRM initiatives (Wentling, 1996; Hite and McDonald, 2003) and family friendly policies (Redman and Wilkinson, 2006) that are starting to play an important role in helping women plan and shape their careers. There is limited research focusing on womens careers advancement in the Middle East and Asia. However with the little available research, there is evidence that women pay particular importance to being married and this come before their careers. Omar and Davidson (2001) points out that, Asian women were not willing to portray themselves as single or married and childless. Islamic beliefs play a major part in shaping ideologies of Middle Eastern societies. It is believed that misunderstanding of Islamic teachings has led to strong beliefs that women are banned from taking up employment or seeking careers advancement to top level jobs (Omar and Davidson, 2001). The prevailing masculine culture and values see women as dependents of men. As a result, men take priority both in terms of access to work and the enjoyment of its returns, (UNDP, 2005: 91), Mostafa (2005) agrees and stresses that some Arab societies (e.g Arab Gulf States) are completely dominated by men and women are not even allow to go out without covering themselves from head to toe. Thus, this may be interpreted as viewing women as inferior. If thats the case it would be almost impossible for women to seek employment or advance their careers from the bottom of the organisational chart to senior managerial level. Another inference is that if women are viewed as inferior, how would they become managers of men within the organisation, or taken seriously or respected? The answer is that it would be impossible. Al-Jenaibi (2010) points out that the thought that women are lesser or unequal to men has been proven to be inaccurate by women who have reached far beyond the ordinary lines of success. In other more liberal Middle Eastern societies, religion and tradition still plays a major role. Women are still expected to perform the duties of a wife and mother, as well as fulfilling their career responsibilities. It is thought that women who are very career minded are viewed as negligent mothers (Domenico and Jones, 2006). Omar and Davidson (2001) suggest that sex role traditionalism and marital expectations in Middle Eastern societies pose even bigger challenges for the working woman, who does not have the option to choose between being married, having families and advancing their career. They are expected to be available to care for the children when they return from school or their husband returns from work. Thus it is clear why women in these societies would rather have a job compared to a career or stick

to low-paying traditional female careers like administrative support, customer service, nursing, teaching and other clerical jobs (Domenico and Jones, 2006). Stasz et al (2007) validated this fact in their survey by concluding that almost 45 per cent of Qatari women in the workforce were teachers, while nearly 20 per cent worked as clerks.

Arab Gulf States like Qatar are very conservative and the Arabian cultural values and Islamic beliefs are strictly adhered to (Elamin and Omair, 2010). Despite the progress made by the Qatari government to grow the level of women in the labour force, the participation is still low when compared to other countries (UNDP, 2005). Elamin and Omair (2010) argue that even when Arab Gulf females (including Qatari females) are employed (outside the home) their work activities are done in exclusively women circumstances, because of their belief in Islamic strict code of gender segregation (Guthrie, 2001). In Qatar, oil companies support gender segregation by subsidizing sex-separate offices and educational facilities (Metcalfe, 2007). Being a patriarchal society, gender stereotyping is the norm. Women are considered to be homemakers while men are believed to be primary breadwinners. Rhode and Kellerman (2007) notes that most stereotypes directed at women has resulted in negative employment and blocked womens advancement in Qatar. Elamin and Omair (2010) in their research on attitudes towards Saudi women, concluded that males in the Arab Gulf have very traditional attitudes towards working women. However, the more educated the male is, the less traditional they are. This can be applied to neighbouring Arab state of Qatar. Thus this paper can state that education is key to womens career advancement in the Arab Gulf including Qatar. Another key findings was age being and important predictor towards attitudes towards working females. The younger generation of males are less traditional than the older generation. This may be because of their exposure to western culture. Nevertheless, the implication here is that there may be changes on the horizon for Qatari working females to advance their careers into management. 3.0) Factors that will aid career advancement of females in Qatar

According to Al-Jenaibi (2010), there is still a clear prejudice against women in Arab Gulf societies, their abilities are often underrated and are regarded as inferior to men. If Qatari women are to advance their careers into senior management roles, traditional ideologies needs to change, especially in the workplace. Though there has been a call for equality between men and women globally, Al-Jenaibi (2010) purports that in Arab Gulf societies it is

difficult for women to communicate in a professional position, because of the norms of the society. Thus she has to be careful of how she speaks to men so as not to be seen as disrespectful or inappropriate. On a positive note, Arab countries like UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman are starting to relax the strict gender code of segregation of women in public. Government policies will play a major part in helping career advancement for Qatari women. Steps are being taken by other Arab Gulf nations like Oman to empower and develop women, upgrading the status of women and facilitating their integration into the total social development (Varghese, 2011: 38). The Sultan of Oman recently stressed the need for womens empowerment in order to help in nation building (Varghese, 2011). This can be emulated by the Qatari government by relaxing the strict islamic code of gender segregation in public. Also by empowering and encouraging Qatari women to take up careers other than the traditional women careers. Omar and Davidson (2001) highlighted political and social policies as an influencer of womens career advancement. The introduction of equal opportunity legislation in the United States and the United Kingdom was aimed at eliminating gender based discrimination in the work place. In Japan, organisations are motivated to create part time or flexible working for women (Omar and Davidson, 2001). Education is another key factor that will help advance the careers of Qatari women. The more educated Qatari working women are, the more likely they will aim to advance their careers into management. However, most working women engage in sectors that are traditionally female i.e. teaching and nursing. Though it is thought that Qatari women are getting more educated, which has resulted in a large number of unemployed female graduates or graduates who are under employed in clerical roles or roles they are over qualified for (Stasz et al, 2007). Thus any short fall in other sectors e.g oil and gas, recruitment consulting and banking are dependent on expatraite male and female. As a result, there is need for Qatari females to break away from their traditional female occupations, so as to compete and develop themselves in other sectors. Elamin and Omair (2010) also notes that the higher the education of males in the Arab Gulf, the less likely that they would discriminate against or consider Arab females are inferior. This then implies that an educated Arab man is more likely to be subordinate to a Arab woman in the work place. Thus education is key to womens career advancement in Qatar. Another important factor is the development of gender and human resource management knowledge. Qatar cannot survive in isolation, and with the rapid economic change and

growth, it is important to integrate with other government, economies and organisations (Metcalfe, 2007). According to Moghadam (2005), Islamic finance and banking offers considerable potential in the global markets, thus it is believed that the growth of this sector will require the services of women. In order to compete effectively in the global economy, organisations in Arab Gulf societies (Qatar included) cannot afford to isolate the major workforce that women represent. Thus organisations with HRM policies that deters selection and promotion of women will only reduce utilisation of valuable personnel and overlooked talent (Mostafa, 2005). Mostafa (2003) predicts that only modernity will reduce patriarchal attitudes towards females in Arab societies. 4.0) Barriers to Career Advancement for women in Qatar

It is now a known fact that there are various barriers to womens career progression into management, and theres a range of literature that offer explanations for this. Maclaran et al (1997) purports that issues like lack of commitment, differences in perception, lack of motivation, inability to take risk and differences in management styles have been explored and are still some of the reasons. Rutherford (2001) points out organisational and cultural dynamics including sex role stereotypes as the culprits. Galinsky et al (2003) research focused on Fortune 1000 companies and found out that a range of factors hindered womens career advancement. They include: lack of line management experience, lack of role models for women at the highest level, stereotyping, commitment, leadership styles, lack of flexibility in work schedules, lack of career planning or strategy, sexual harassment, perception that women were not as internationally mobile as men. In their research of womens career progression barriers in Iran, Jamali and Nejati (2009) concluded that lack of organisational support and job restrictions (location, salary, etc.) are the main barriers to career progression for women. The ILO (2004) report cited family responsibilities as a key barrier to womens career advancement. The report quotes Family responsibilities had played a major role in whether or not the women had accepted the jobs. Some of them had delayed accepting them until their children were older; others had been able to accept them because their husbands had stayed at home (ILO, 2004: 51). The report also identified womens biological clock as a hinderance to their career progression, when compared to men who had greater flexibility. Thus there are a range of barriers to womens careers advancement on a general note.

In the context of Qatari women, it is easy for any researcher to suggest that the barriers already highlighted will apply. However, care should be taken not to generalise because most of the research were conducted on women in western countries who were already working in a corporate role. In their study of contraints facing the working woman in Lebanon, Jamali et al (2005) found out the barriers facing women worldwide are the same as those facing Lebanese women, but the main differences revolve around the strongly felt salience of cultural values and expectations constraining women to traditional roles and a more accentuated sense of patriarchy. This has been the main theme for studies (Omar and Davidson, 2001; Guthrie, 2001; Mostafa, 2003; Mostafa, 2005; Moghadam, 2005; Abdy, 2005; Al-Lamky, 2007; Metcalfe, 2007; Elamin and Omair, 2010;) conducted on Arab women in the Middle East. These studies highlight Arab cultural values and tradition as main barriers to career progression for women in Arab societies. Arab cultural and traditional values praise Arab women as carriers of virtue and caretakers of tradition with their role more private but their reproductive functions emphasised (Mostafa, 2003). Thus educated Qatari women may find that their primary responsibility is childbearing and childrearing without paying much attention to their careers. Organisations in Qatar also perceive it this way, as a result would overtly or covertly discriminate against women. Empirical data show that Arab women experience career and development constraints because of different gender roles and that gender or equality issues are largely absent from HRM organization policy (Jamali and Nejati, 2009). Another key barrier highlighted by existing literature is Islam or misunderstandings of Islamic teachings. Omar and Davidson (2001) stressed that misunderstanding of the teachings of Islam has led to the belief that it is a sin for women to be working in or seeking senior management jobs. Al-Lail (1996) argues that the fact that Qatari women are not supposed to publicly participate in senior or administrative processes relates to the assumption that Islam as a religion, restricts and limits the role of women in public affairs. Thus educated Arab women (including Qatari women) have no choice but to take up positions that are deemed non-political in nature e.g nursing and teaching (Mostafa, 2005). It appears that there is a link between Islam and the patriarchal structure of Qatar, but Jamali et al (2005) stresses that patriarchy may be the main barrier against Qatari women and the patriarchal society is just exploiting Islam in order to legitimately discriminate against women. If this is the case, then the root solution will not be in re-defining organisational HRM, but introducing government policies and national human resource management policies to combat these barriers.

5.0)

Family Friendly Policies (FFP) to aid Female career advancement in Qatar

Family friendly HRM policies are policies which enable employees to balance the demand of paid employment and personal life. This can be in the form of work place flexibility or work time flexibility ((Subramaniam and Selvaratnam, 2010). Put simply, it is a set of formal and informal practices designed to enable an employee to combine family responsibilities with employment (Glass and Finley, 2002). Family friendly policies have been tailored for female employees, as they struggle to balance paid work and managing their homes and families. Redman and Wilkinson (2006) suggests that the emergence of family friendly policies and work-life balance as a central issues in the work place shows the extent to which the workplace is being feminised. The ILO (2004) report claims that there is evidence to show that organisations globally have adopted it fully and are starting to see the benefits in terms of overall business productivity. A simple explanation for this is that when employees have a better balance between their work and their personal life, they are less stressed, thus they can give more output to the organisation. Subramaniam and Selvaratnam (2010) listed family friendly practices as comprising flexible working, flexi-time, job share, home working, variable working hours, annualised hours, compressed working week, part-time work, teleworking and voluntary reduced hours. Glass and Finley (2002) grouped them into three broad headings: flexibility and leave arrangement practices, childcare facility practices, and
virtual office facility practices. Flexibility and leave arrangement practices include policies aimed at reducing working hours to provide time for home, family and child rearing. Childcare facility practices involve policies aimed at providing social support for parents. This includes child care vouchers, on-site or off site child care facilities, subsidising child care. Virtual office facility practice involves policies aimed at home working, flexible working, and annualised hours e.t.c. The purpose is to make work flexible but does not reduce hours. When viewing family friendly policies and how it can apply to Qatari organisations, one must first consider the cultural factors and how these policies can merge with culture (both social and organisational). For example, the female role stereotyping culture of Qatar cannot be changed overnight, but organisation can still help in advancing womens careers by providing child care facilities on site. Qatari organisations can draw some lessons from Malaysia. The Malaysian government has stepped in to encourage organisations to introduce family friendly policies. Government agencies

and a few multinational corporations and educational institutions in Malaysia have already implemented some form of family friendly policies and also various forms of flexible working arrangements (Subramaniam and Selvaratnam, 2010). It should also be noted that Malaysia is not much different from Qatar because Malaysian women are historically subject to a patriarchal society holding the ideology of good mother and good wife (Subramaniam and Selvaratnam, 2010: 46). Their research highlights that public sector organisations are providing child care incentives and facilities at the work place. Another family friendly HRM policy that can apply in Qatari organisations is flexible working or home working. In their research, Subramaniam and Selvaratnam (2010) found out that most people in the workforce (women alike) felt that flexi working or home working would help their work life balance and improve their quality of life. In Qatari organisations, flexi working or home working can be utilised to combat the tradition of women not allowed to work amongst men. Women can work form home, while taking care of their homes and family. Thus its a win win situation for the employer.

6.0)

Conclusion

The purpose of this paper is to explore career advancement of Qatari women into management. This paper highlighted the current state of female career advancement globally and eventually focusing on Qatar. As Qatar competes in the global market place, it must have enough man power to drive the economy. However if Qatari women only represent a small proportion of the labour force, the country has to rely on expatriates to do fill the vacuum left by Qatari women. Religion and cultural ideologies are the main barriers to Qatari women career advancement. It is believed that since Islam does not permit women to seek senior management roles, most women (and men) see it as going against their religion for Qatari women to advance their career beyond certain levels. Thus they are relegated to typical female occupations like teaching, nursing and secretarial roles or the bottom of organisational hierarchy. Salient points raised are that family friendly HRM policies like flexible working and home working can assist Qatari women to climb the corporate ladder. This is because they can simultaneously manage their homes and children while working flexibly. Thus the barrier that women need to stay at home or should not be seen in public is tackled. It should be noted that for organisations to adopt any effective HRM policies to aid Qatari women to advance their careers, consultation with local focus groups and religious groups is

needed. This is because religion plays a central part in the culture of the Qatari society. The social, national, political and religious culture should be taken into consideration before policies are proposed and implemented. Also as Subramaniam and Selvaratnam (2010) points out, the chance for women to work must exist through supportive government legislation, organisational facilities, un-biased HRM policies and attitudes.

7.0)

References

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