[22/July/2003] Labor force in Yemen is estimated to approximately 45.9 % of the total population ( 40 % in the urban regions and 48.3% in the rural regions ) .

Generally the matter embodies a quality gap between men and women its rate comes up to 21.9 % within women and 58.% within men. In the urban regions the rate of women in the labor force reaches up to 11.5 % while the rate of men reaches to 68 % as that shown by the data about the women share in the economical activity comparing to men but this rate has grown recently in unprecedented form.

The women participation in the rural economical activity makes up 25.9 % against 70.7 % for men but this rate declines in the urban regions to 11.5 % against to 68 % for men.

There are several reasons beyond the wide gap between men and women in the participation in the economical activity such as social traditions and customs which prevent of women’s share in the economical activities and the lower level of education and qualification amongst women , the lack of the required and proper skills for the labor’s market in addition to the early marriage .

The labor’s employment often prefer men than women in the employment due to the obligations which woman has to undertake as a female in the process of the reproduction of children besides that there is no care services for the child to help the labor women.

Women participation condensed in the traditional works in the sectors of agricultural , fishery and handcrafts where 87.7 % of the gross labor women are involved.

The second sector is education which absorbs around 4.3 % of the women employment and the transformational industries absorb 2.6 %. This means that the rate of woman share in the three sectors represents 94.6 % of the woman activity.

With respect to the distribution of labor men and women to the economical sectors there are 91.7 % of women work in the private sector and the nongovernmental organizations against 76.4 % of men who work in the same sector whereas there is 6.3 % of women work in the governmental sector against 20.6 % of men. Specialists believe that the poor share of women in the private sector represents one of the obstacles that prevent her accession to the labor market.

There are some variables such as the reforms programs of economy , finance and administration as well as the privatization and the economical restructure which the government has adopted.

These changes require reducing the number of governmental employees and giving more importance to the private sector consequently this brings about negative impacts on woman’s participation because the employment in the private sector requires modern skills and qualifications women are lacking of them.

However , there are some specialists think that women tend to work in the governmental sector to secure their rights in the social insurance which they can’t always secure it in the private sector in addition to that the Yemeni society is more understanding to woman’s work in the governmental sector than her work in the private sector.

There is quite number of women work in many home activities like homemade foods , clothes and handicrafts. Statistics of labor force distribution indicate that women who work for their family without wage make up 61.9 % and this is more than half of women who work in the various fields in Yemen.

There is a variation in the payrolls wages of women and men in the private sector as the rate of women wages to men’s estimated at 62 % whereas in the public sector the rate of women’s wages to men’s reached to 78.4 % because women often condensed in the simple occupation.

Generally the variation between the wages of men and women is obvious in all occupations.

The rate of the variation in the simple 74.7 % and in the occupation of operation and collection the rate is estimated at 35.5 % while in the sale services it is 75.4 % and in the administrative occupations it is 83.7 % .

This is actually a problem needs to be tackled to reduce it in the long term.
Concerning to the unemployment men’s number is larger than women’s due to the large number of men in the labor market however the averages of woman unemployment are higher than men’s averages.

The average of men’s unemployment is estimated at 12.5 % against to 8.2 % for women because men make up the majority of jobs seekers whereas women don’t take a decisive steps for getting jobs therefore they aren’t eventually unemployment in the scientific term of the unemployment.

The higher rate of unemployment amongst women is attributed to some reasons such as specializations of the qualified women aren’t required in the labor market , the economical recession and the privatization of some governmental institutions resulted in reducing the employment and that affected badly woman’s work in those institutions.

In addition to that woman’s employment is condensed in limited traditional occupations which gave rise to decreasing the jobs opportunities and enhancing social traditions and habits which prevent women from practicing some occupations used to be confined to men.
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