{"id":9342,"date":"2026-08-19T23:27:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T19:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/women-workforce-leadership-gcc-africa-statistics-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T23:50:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T19:50:36","slug":"women-workforce-leadership-gcc-africa-statistics-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/women-workforce-leadership-gcc-africa-statistics-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Women in the GCC and African Workforce: The Complete Leadership and Participation Statistics Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>\n.stk-wrap{background:linear-gradient(135deg,#4a1030,#a0336e);border-radius:16px;padding:32px 36px;margin:0 0 32px;color:#fff}\n.stk-wrap h2{color:#fff;margin:0 0 16px;font-size:1.2rem}\n.stk-list{display:grid;grid-template-columns:repeat(auto-fit,minmax(220px,1fr));gap:16px;list-style:none;margin:0;padding:0}\n.stk-list li{background:rgba(255,255,255,.1);border-radius:10px;padding:14px 16px;font-size:.92rem;line-height:1.6}\n.stk-list strong{display:block;font-size:1.5rem;font-weight:800;margin-bottom:4px}\n.bignum{background:#f4f7fa;border:1.5px solid #dde3ec;border-radius:14px;padding:28px 32px;text-align:center;margin:28px 0}\n.bignum .n{font-size:3rem;font-weight:800;color:#a0336e;line-height:1}\n.bignum .l{color:#4a5568;font-size:.95rem;margin-top:8px}\n.cbar-wrap{background:#f8fafc;border:1.5px solid #dde3ec;border-radius:14px;padding:28px 32px;margin:28px 0}\n.cbar-wrap h3{margin:0 0 20px;font-size:1.05rem;color:#122f42}\n.cbar-row{display:flex;align-items:center;gap:12px;margin-bottom:14px}\n.cbar-label{width:130px;font-size:.85rem;font-weight:600;color:#122f42;flex-shrink:0}\n.cbar-track{flex:1;background:#e5eaf1;border-radius:6px;height:22px;position:relative;overflow:hidden}\n.cbar-fill{height:100%;border-radius:6px;display:flex;align-items:center;justify-content:flex-end;padding-right:8px}\n.cbar-val{font-size:.78rem;font-weight:700;color:#fff}\n.source-note{font-size:.78rem;color:#8a94a6;margin-top:16px}\n.pull-fact{border-left:4px solid #a0336e;background:#fdf3f8;padding:20px 26px;margin:28px 0;font-size:1.08rem;font-weight:600;color:#4a1030;line-height:1.6}\n.section-h{border-left:4px solid #a0336e;padding-left:14px;margin:40px 0 18px;font-size:1.3rem;color:#4a1030}\n.related-wrap{background:#f8fafc;border:1.5px solid #dde3ec;border-radius:14px;padding:28px 32px;margin:36px 0}\n.related-wrap h3{margin:0 0 16px;font-size:1.05rem;color:#122f42}\n.related-grid{display:grid;grid-template-columns:repeat(auto-fit,minmax(240px,1fr));gap:14px}\n.related-card{background:#fff;border:1px solid #dde3ec;border-radius:10px;padding:14px 16px;text-decoration:none;display:block}\n.related-card strong{display:block;color:#122f42;font-size:.9rem;margin-bottom:4px}\n.related-card span{color:#6b7a99;font-size:.8rem}\n.cta-wrap{background:linear-gradient(135deg,#a0336e,#4a1030);border-radius:16px;padding:36px 40px;margin:36px 0;color:#fff}\n.cta-wrap h3{color:#fff;margin:0 0 10px;font-size:1.25rem}\n.cta-wrap p{opacity:.9;margin:0 0 20px;font-size:.95rem;line-height:1.7}\n.cta-links{display:flex;flex-wrap:wrap;gap:10px}\n.cta-links a{background:rgba(255,255,255,.15);border:1px solid rgba(255,255,255,.3);border-radius:8px;padding:10px 18px;font-size:.85rem;color:#fff;text-decoration:none;font-weight:600}\n<\/style>\n<p>Saudi Arabia&#8217;s female labour force participation rate climbed from roughly 17 percent in 2016 to 36.2 percent by early 2025, one of the fastest gains recorded anywhere in modern economic history, beating the government&#8217;s own Vision 2030 target five years ahead of schedule. Yet in Northern Africa, the picture is almost reversed: only 22.5 percent of working-age women are economically active at all, against 73.8 percent of men, one of the widest gender participation gaps recorded anywhere on earth. This report compiles the most current, verifiable data on women&#8217;s workforce participation and leadership representation across the GCC and Africa, drawn directly from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stats.gov.sa\/en\/w\/news\/6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Saudi General Authority for Statistics<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/publications\/global-gender-gap-report-2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">World Economic Forum<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldbank.org\/en\/topic\/gender\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">World Bank<\/a>, with every figure sourced individually throughout.<\/p>\n<div class=\"stk-wrap\">\n<h2>Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"stk-list\">\n<li><strong>36.2%<\/strong>Saudi female labour force participation in early 2025, up from ~17% in 2016<\/li>\n<li><strong>61.9%<\/strong>Qatar leads the GCC in female labour force participation<\/li>\n<li><strong>28.8%<\/strong>Share of global management positions held by women, despite being 40.2% of the workforce<\/li>\n<li><strong>51pt gap<\/strong>Northern Africa&#8217;s gender gap in overall labour force participation, among the widest globally<\/li>\n<li><strong>55.1%<\/strong>Rwanda&#8217;s female labour force participation, Africa&#8217;s highest<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"section-h\">The Saudi story: one of the fastest gains on record<\/h2>\n<p>No country in this dataset moved faster than Saudi Arabia. Female labour force participation rose from a baseline of roughly 17 percent in 2016 to 22 percent by 2018, the year the driving ban was lifted, crossed 30 percent by 2021, meeting the original Vision 2030 target five years early, and reached <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stats.gov.sa\/en\/w\/news\/6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">36.2 percent according to GASTAT&#8217;s Q1 2025 Labor Market Publication<\/a>. Over that same window, female unemployment fell to 10.5 percent and labour force participation among young Saudi women aged 15 to 24 climbed to 18.4 percent.<\/p>\n<div class=\"pull-fact\">Saudi Arabia&#8217;s near-14-point jump in female workforce participation between 2017 and 2023 is one of the fastest gains any economy has achieved in such a short span, according to Vision 2030 progress data.<\/div>\n<p>Progress has not been uniform across every dimension. Gaps remain in leadership positions and STEM fields specifically, where female representation continues to lag behind the headline participation figure, meaning the participation story and the leadership story in Saudi Arabia are genuinely two separate trend lines that deserve separate tracking rather than being read as a single narrative.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"section-h\">Country by country across the GCC<\/h2>\n<p>Saudi Arabia&#8217;s rate, while historic in its trajectory, remains the lowest among GCC states in absolute terms. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.agbi.com\/opinion\/employment\/2026\/08\/the-rise-of-women-in-the-gulfs-new-economy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">World Bank 2025 modelling of ILO estimates<\/a>, reported by AGBI, puts Qatar at the top of the region at 61.9 percent female labour force participation, followed by the UAE at 53 percent, Kuwait at 47.2 percent, and Bahrain at 42.3 percent. Separately, Oman&#8217;s participation rate exceeded 40 percent by 2023 according to the GCC Statistical Yearbook. The GCC Statistical Yearbook also reports that regional female labour force participation exceeded 39 percent overall in the most recent count, representing 7.3 million women, with the female unemployment rate across the bloc at 10.5 percent in 2025, down 26.1 percent since 2020.<\/p>\n<div class=\"cbar-wrap\">\n<h3>Female labour force participation, GCC countries<\/h3>\n<div class=\"cbar-row\"><span class=\"cbar-label\">Qatar<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"cbar-track\">\n<div class=\"cbar-fill\" style=\"width:100%;background:#a0336e\"><span class=\"cbar-val\">61.9%<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"cbar-row\"><span class=\"cbar-label\">UAE<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"cbar-track\">\n<div class=\"cbar-fill\" style=\"width:86%;background:#a0336e\"><span class=\"cbar-val\">53.0%<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"cbar-row\"><span class=\"cbar-label\">Kuwait<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"cbar-track\">\n<div class=\"cbar-fill\" style=\"width:76%;background:#c25a8a\"><span class=\"cbar-val\">47.2%<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"cbar-row\"><span class=\"cbar-label\">Oman<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"cbar-track\">\n<div class=\"cbar-fill\" style=\"width:65%;background:#c25a8a\"><span class=\"cbar-val\">~40%+<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"cbar-row\"><span class=\"cbar-label\">Bahrain<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"cbar-track\">\n<div class=\"cbar-fill\" style=\"width:68%;background:#c25a8a\"><span class=\"cbar-val\">42.3%<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"cbar-row\"><span class=\"cbar-label\">Saudi Arabia<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"cbar-track\">\n<div class=\"cbar-fill\" style=\"width:58%;background:#d891b5\"><span class=\"cbar-val\">36.2%<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"source-note\">Source: World Bank 2025 modelling of ILO estimates (Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain), GCC Statistical Yearbook (Oman), Saudi GASTAT Q1 2025 Labor Market Publication (Saudi Arabia).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"section-h\">The global baseline: participation is falling, the gap is narrowing<\/h2>\n<p>Global female labour force participation has actually declined over the last two decades, from 50.7 percent in 2005 to 48.8 percent in 2025, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/wol.iza.org\/articles\/female-labor-force-participation-and-development\/long\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ILO modelled estimates<\/a>. Despite that decline, nearly 320 million women have joined the labour market over the same period, and the gender participation gap has narrowed slightly, from 26.4 percentage points in 2005 to 24.1 percentage points in 2025.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"section-h\">Northern Africa&#8217;s outlier gap<\/h2>\n<p>Set against the GCC&#8217;s rapid gains, Northern Africa presents a genuinely different picture within the same broader region. Only 22.5 percent of working-age women in Northern Africa are economically active, compared to 73.8 percent of men, a 51.3 percentage point gap that ranks among the widest gender disparities in labour force participation recorded anywhere in the world at any age, not just among youth. That gap sits alongside, and helps explain, the elevated female youth unemployment figures we cover in our companion report on <a href=\"\/en\/youth-unemployment-arab-states-africa-statistics-2026\/\">youth unemployment across the Arab States and Africa<\/a>, since young women in the region face both a youth-specific and a structural participation barrier simultaneously.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"section-h\">The workforce-to-leadership gap<\/h2>\n<p>The more striking figure sits above simple participation. According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/publications\/global-gender-gap-report-2025\/in-full\/labour-markets-political-leadership-and-supporting-frameworks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">World Economic Forum&#8217;s Global Gender Gap Report 2025<\/a>, women represented 41.2 percent of the overall workforce in the LinkedIn dataset underlying the report&#8217;s analysis as of 2024. Set against the broader global figure of 40.2 percent of the workforce, women hold just 28.8 percent of management positions, a gap of roughly 12 percentage points between overall workforce presence and leadership representation. We cover this leadership-specific gap in more depth, with GCC-focused detail, in our companion piece on <a href=\"\/en\/women-in-leadership-gcc\/\">women in leadership across the GCC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"bignum\">\n<div class=\"n\">50%<\/div>\n<div class=\"l\">Of seats in the UAE&#8217;s Federal National Council are held by women since a 2019 presidential directive, up from 22% before, the highest rate of female parliamentary participation recorded anywhere in the Arab world, per the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/stories\/2025\/07\/women-economies-progressing-gender-parity\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">World Economic Forum<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>That political representation figure sits in contrast to broader elected-body representation across the wider GCC, which remains comparatively low: Bahrain at 7.5 percent, Kuwait at 3.1 percent, Saudi Arabia at 19.9 percent, and Qatar&#8217;s directly elected chamber currently has no women members, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/agsi.org\/analysis\/cracking-glass-ceiling-gulf-women-politics\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Arab Gulf States Institute analysis<\/a>. The UAE&#8217;s Federal National Council figure reflects a specific mandated quota rather than the regional norm. On the corporate side, the UAE separately required all publicly listed companies to have at least one woman on their board starting in 2021, a mandate the World Economic Forum credits with a genuine jump in female board representation within just two years of introduction.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"section-h\">Africa: wide variation, with clear leaders<\/h2>\n<p>Female labour force participation across Africa varies enormously by country. Rwanda leads the continent at approximately 55.1 percent, a figure closely tied to the government&#8217;s active promotion of women in leadership and legally mandated gender quotas ensuring women&#8217;s representation in public sector roles, well above the current global average of 48.8 percent. That range, from Rwanda&#8217;s 55.1 percent down to Northern Africa&#8217;s 22.5 percent, illustrates just how much national policy and legal framework, rather than region alone, determines outcomes for women across the continent. For a country-specific deep dive, we&#8217;ve covered <a href=\"\/en\/female-employment-statistics-for-nigeria\/\">female employment statistics for Nigeria<\/a> separately.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"section-h\">What childcare access does to participation, specifically<\/h2>\n<p>One of the more actionable findings in the World Bank and ILO data concerns a specific, quantified policy lever. Expanding childcare availability is estimated to add roughly one percentage point to women&#8217;s labour force participation in the short term, with that effect roughly doubling over a five-year horizon as expanded access compounds, one of the few interventions in this dataset with a directly measured, replicable effect size.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"section-h\">Summary table<\/h2>\n<table style=\"width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;margin:24px 0\">\n<tr style=\"background:#f4f7fa\">\n<th style=\"padding:10px 14px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">Measure<\/th>\n<th style=\"padding:10px 14px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">Figure<\/th>\n<th style=\"padding:10px 14px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">Source<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">Qatar female labour participation<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">61.9%, GCC&#8217;s highest<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.agbi.com\/opinion\/employment\/2026\/08\/the-rise-of-women-in-the-gulfs-new-economy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">AGBI \/ World Bank<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"background:#f4f7fa\">\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">UAE female labour participation<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">53.0%<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">AGBI \/ World Bank<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">Kuwait female labour participation<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">47.2%<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">AGBI \/ World Bank<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"background:#f4f7fa\">\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">Bahrain female labour participation<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">42.3%<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">AGBI \/ World Bank<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">Saudi Arabia female labour participation, Q1 2025<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">36.2%, up from ~17% in 2016<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stats.gov.sa\/en\/w\/news\/6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">GASTAT<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"background:#f4f7fa\">\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">GCC female participation, regional total<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">39%+, 7.3 million women<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">GCC Statistical Yearbook<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">Global female labour force participation, 2025<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">48.8%, down from 50.7% in 2005<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">ILO modelled estimates<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"background:#f4f7fa\">\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">Northern Africa gender gap, all ages<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">22.5% women vs 73.8% men active<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">ILO<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">Women&#8217;s share of global workforce<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">40.2%<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/publications\/global-gender-gap-report-2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WEF Global Gender Gap Report 2025<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"background:#f4f7fa\">\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">Women&#8217;s share of management positions<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">28.8%<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">WEF Global Gender Gap Report 2025<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">UAE Federal National Council, women&#8217;s seats<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">50%, since 2019<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">World Economic Forum<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"background:#f4f7fa\">\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">Rwanda female labour force participation<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">~55.1%, Africa&#8217;s highest<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">World Bank \/ ILO data<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">Childcare access effect on participation<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">+1pp short term, +2pp over 5 years<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding:10px 14px;border:1px solid #dde3ec\">World Bank \/ ILO estimates<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/youth-workforce-team-collaboration-office.jpg\" alt=\"Colleagues collaborating around a laptop in an open office\" style=\"width:100%;border-radius:12px;margin:24px 0\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"related-wrap\">\n<h3>Further reading on women&#8217;s workforce participation<\/h3>\n<div class=\"related-grid\">\n<a class=\"related-card\" href=\"\/en\/women-in-leadership-gcc\/\"><strong>Women in Leadership in the GCC: Statistics, Challenges and Progress<\/strong><span>A closer look specifically at the leadership gap covered above<\/span><\/a><br \/>\n<a class=\"related-card\" href=\"\/en\/gender-bias-in-the-workplace\/\"><strong>Gender Bias in the Workplace: How to Identify and Address It<\/strong><span>The structural cause behind much of the leadership gap in this data<\/span><\/a><br \/>\n<a class=\"related-card\" href=\"\/en\/female-employment-statistics-for-nigeria\/\"><strong>Female Employment Statistics in Nigeria<\/strong><span>A country-specific deep dive into the African data referenced above<\/span><\/a><br \/>\n<a class=\"related-card\" href=\"\/en\/gender-neutral-leadership-training-mena\/\"><strong>Promoting Gender-Neutral Leadership Training in Middle Eastern Corporations<\/strong><span>Practical training design for closing the gap this report documents<\/span><\/a><br \/>\n<a class=\"related-card\" href=\"\/en\/developing-cultural-sensitivity-training-for-global-teams-in-the-gulf\/\"><strong>Cultural Sensitivity Training for Global Teams in the Gulf<\/strong><span>Relevant context for organisations managing the diverse workforce this data describes<\/span><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"cta-wrap\">\n<h3>Turning this data into a leadership pipeline<\/h3>\n<p>The gap between workforce presence and leadership representation, roughly 12 percentage points globally, is not closing on its own. The four areas below map directly onto the structural gaps this report identifies, from bias in hiring and review processes through to dedicated sponsorship infrastructure and safeguarding capability, and each is available as open enrolment or in-house delivery.<\/p>\n<div class=\"cta-links\">\n<a href=\"\/en\/course\/women-in-leadership-course\/\">Women in Leadership<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"\/en\/course\/unconscious-bias-and-gender-bias-in-the-workplace\/\">Unconscious Bias and Gender Bias in the Workplace<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"\/en\/course\/designing-a-womens-mentorship-programme\/\">Designing a Women&#8217;s Mentorship Programme<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"\/en\/course\/gender-based-violence-prevention-and-response\/\">Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Response<\/a>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"section-h\">Sources<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stats.gov.sa\/en\/w\/news\/6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Saudi General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT), Labor Market Publication, Q1 2025<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.agbi.com\/opinion\/employment\/2026\/08\/the-rise-of-women-in-the-gulfs-new-economy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">AGBI, citing World Bank 2025 modelling of ILO estimates<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/publications\/global-gender-gap-report-2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Report 2025<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/agsi.org\/analysis\/cracking-glass-ceiling-gulf-women-politics\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Arab Gulf States Institute, Gulf Women in Politics analysis<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wol.iza.org\/articles\/female-labor-force-participation-and-development\/long\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">IZA World of Labor, citing ILO modelled estimates<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mohacafrica.org\/unemployment-rate-in-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MOHAC Africa, citing ILO regional labour force data<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"font-size:.85rem;color:#6b7a99\">This report will be updated as newer ILO, World Bank, and WEF data becomes available. Last compiled August 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A fully sourced statistical breakdown of women&#8217;s workforce participation and leadership representation across the GCC and Africa, drawn from ILO, World Bank, and World Economic Forum research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9341,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9342"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9353,"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9342\/revisions\/9353"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}