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Gender and Education for All
THE LEAP TO EQUALITY |
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| Box 3.19. Education, gender and employment in Maghreb countries | |
The Maghreb region demonstrates the difficulty of making linear assumptions about the links between education and employment for women. It shows that while education can influence women’s opportunities to find formal employment in non-traditional sectors, economic policies, legislation and the social environment also matter.
Both Tunisia and Algeria have attained gender parity in education but Tunisian women have wide access to the labour market, whereas in Algeria it is much more restricted. Tunisia introduced curriculum reform to improve the image of women. The education system has expanded. Social reforms have been implemented, giving women the right to vote and improved divorce and marriage rights. Nearly 70% of Tunisian women are employed in the formal sector, and there is a growing number of female engineers. However, in Algeria, declining rates of female participation in the formal sector are largely associated with the decline of the public sector, which was the largest employer. Women are thus increasingly dependent on the informal sector. In contrast, Morocco is far from achieving gender parity in school enrolments and is falling further behind. However, Morocco performs much better than the two others in terms of female participation in the labour market. Poverty is one factor propelling women into the labour market, as witnessed by high rates of rural–urban migration for women. Thus, although most women are economically active, they are clustered in low-paid, low-skilled jobs.
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Source: EFA Global Monitoring Report Team.
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