scholarly journals Saudisation and Women’s Empowerment through Employment in the Health Care Sector

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Fatemah Alghamdi

<p>The majority of studies concerning Saudisation policy as a solution to decrease the unemployment of nationals and reduce the reliance on expatriate. However, this study looks at Saudisation as a tool to empower Saudi women working in the health care sector. Saudi working women have been lacking opportunities of empowerment, due to challenges they face in their daily life that hinder the development and equality of those women.  The thesis has been guided by the literature and qualitative evidence that suggests obstacles to women’s empowerment and development involve socially constructed norms, traditions, religion and culture that primarily favour men. The study, also, adopts feminist geography and gender perspective and focuses on the individual voices of women working in the health care sector. This research uses different empowerment frameworks of Kabeer, Rowland, Stromquist and Freire, which are relevant to women employment and empowerment. This research utilises feminist methodology in obtaining deep understanding of the reality and experience of women employed in the health care sector.  Findings of this research reveal conditions that maintain disempowerment of women working in health care sector, as well as identifying the tools that might guarantee their empowerment. Findings also show those women necessities in the case of gender needs that revolve around their domestic and working responsibilities.  This thesis provides some recommendations to government, policy makers, educational institutions and employers about how to contribute in empowering women and overcoming challenges that hinder their development and wellbeing. Ultimately, this study aimed to, first, contribute to the literature of women’s empowerment by exploring their employment in a Saudi context and second, to put the spotlight on Saudi women’s issues through development lens and enrich that field of study.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Fatemah Alghamdi

<p>The majority of studies concerning Saudisation policy as a solution to decrease the unemployment of nationals and reduce the reliance on expatriate. However, this study looks at Saudisation as a tool to empower Saudi women working in the health care sector. Saudi working women have been lacking opportunities of empowerment, due to challenges they face in their daily life that hinder the development and equality of those women.  The thesis has been guided by the literature and qualitative evidence that suggests obstacles to women’s empowerment and development involve socially constructed norms, traditions, religion and culture that primarily favour men. The study, also, adopts feminist geography and gender perspective and focuses on the individual voices of women working in the health care sector. This research uses different empowerment frameworks of Kabeer, Rowland, Stromquist and Freire, which are relevant to women employment and empowerment. This research utilises feminist methodology in obtaining deep understanding of the reality and experience of women employed in the health care sector.  Findings of this research reveal conditions that maintain disempowerment of women working in health care sector, as well as identifying the tools that might guarantee their empowerment. Findings also show those women necessities in the case of gender needs that revolve around their domestic and working responsibilities.  This thesis provides some recommendations to government, policy makers, educational institutions and employers about how to contribute in empowering women and overcoming challenges that hinder their development and wellbeing. Ultimately, this study aimed to, first, contribute to the literature of women’s empowerment by exploring their employment in a Saudi context and second, to put the spotlight on Saudi women’s issues through development lens and enrich that field of study.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. 798-798
Author(s):  
Akhter Ahmed ◽  
John Hoddinott ◽  
Agnes Quisumbing ◽  
Purnima Menon ◽  
Julie Ghostlaw ◽  
...  

Abstract Objectives Secondary data analysis in Bangladesh has found associations across agricultural production, women's empowerment, and nutrition outcomes. Less is known, though, about whether combining interventions across these areas is more effective than isolated interventions to improve agricultural diversity, diet diversity, and women's empowerment in Bangladesh. Methods The Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages study used a cluster randomized controlled trial to evaluate impacts of agriculture, nutrition, and/or gender interventions on food production, diets, and empowerment. 160 blocks were randomized to control and 5 training models: (T1) nutrition by government agriculture extension agents (AEAs); (T2) nutrition by community nutrition workers; (T3) agriculture on production of nutrient-rich foods by AEAs; (T4) agriculture and nutrition by AEAs; and (T5) agriculture and nutrition by AEAs, and gender sensitization. Trainings targeted men and women together. 4000 farm households with a child under age 2 at baseline were surveyed 2 years apart. Impact estimates used endline data, adjusting for baseline characteristics using analysis of covariance. Results All treatments significantly improved agriculture production knowledge and adoption of improved production practices, more so in arms with agriculture training (T3, T4, T5), and for women than men. All treatments significantly improved nutrition knowledge, more so in arms with nutrition training, and for women than men. Household diet quality and child diet diversity significantly improved only in T2 and T4. Women's empowerment significantly improved in all treatments, and men's gender attitudes improved in T1, T4, T5, more so in the gender arm (T5). No impacts were expected or found on child anthropometry. Conclusions Joint interventions had larger impacts than isolated ones, suggesting synergies across agriculture, nutrition, and gender. Impact on food and nutrition outcomes (food production or nutrition practices) required agriculture and/or nutrition training. Funding Sources USAID; the Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project, Phase 2, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; and the CGIAR Research Programs on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health and Policies, Institutions, and Markets.


2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Puspa Raj Sharma

This paper examines the effects of women’s participation in group-based micro-credit pro-grams on a large set of qualitative responses to questions that characterize women’s autonomy and gender relations within the household. The data come from a special survey carried out in hill and tarai in 2004-2006 of Nepal. The results are consistent with the view that women’s participation in micro-credit programs helps to increase women’s empowerment. Credit program participation leads to women taking a greater role in household decision-making, having greater access to financial and economic resources, having greater social networks, having greater bargaining power compared with their husbands, and having greater freedom of mobility. Female credit also tended to increase spousal communication in general about family planning and parenting concerns. Ecologically, the higher impact on women’s empowerment was noticed in terai. The reason may be relatively lower social and economic status of terai women at the time of program initiation compared to that of hills. As a result, even a small change in their status would get reflected distinctly. The Journal of Nepalese Business Studies Vol. IV, No. 1 (2007) pp. 16-27


Equity and Access attempts to unravel the complex narrative of why inequities in the health sector are growing and access to basic health care is worsening, and the underlying forces that contribute to this situation. It draws attention to the way globalization has influenced India’s development trajectory as health care issues have assumed significant socio-economic and political significance in contemporary India. The volume explains how state and market forces have progressively heightened the iniquitous health care system and the process through which substantial burden of meeting health care needs has fallen on the individual households. Twenty-eight scholars comprising social scientists, medical experts, public health experts, policy makers, health activists, legal experts, and gender specialists have delved into the politics of access for different classes, castes, gender, and other categories to contribute to a new field of ‘health care studies’ in this volume. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach within a broader political-economy framework, the volume is useful for understanding power relations within social groups and complex organizational systems.


Author(s):  
Erika Zoeller Véras

This paper is an investigation on female entrepreneurship, women’s enterprise development and the opportunities to create shared value. Enterprise development can make a significant contribution to women’s empowerment and gender equality and has a key role in gender strategies. Thus, understanding these topics together has become important. Nevertheless, there is a lack of research regarding the combination of the concepts. The framework arose due the fact that, although women are making relevant advancements in entrepreneurship, yet, if compared to men, they lack access to finance, training, and rights, besides differing in terms of economic opportunities. To tackle this disparity, WEConnect International is promoting equal access and opportunity for them to compete. Large organizations tend to engage with a limited pool of vendors, which excludes qualified women-owned businesses and others, therefore missing out on cost savings and profit, and possibly on some important innovations. The initiative aims to locate women-owned businesses, certify them and introduce them to business opportunities. Going further on studies about women’s enterprise is necessary because of the rising of women in the economic scenario, as their businesses are having a growing impact on the economy and society.


Author(s):  
Andrea R. Jain

Peace Love Yoga analyzes growing spiritual industries and their coherence with neoliberal capitalism. “Personal growth,” “self-care,” and “transformation” are just some of the generative tropes in the narrative of these industries. The book illuminates the power dynamics underlying what the author calls neoliberal spirituality, illustrating how spiritual commodities are rooted in concerns about deviancy, not only in the form of low productivity but also forms of social deviancy. The book, however, does not just offer one more voice bemoaning the commodification of spirituality as a numbing device through which consumers ignore the problems of neoliberal capitalism or as the corruption or loss of “authentic” religious forms. Instead, it asks what we should make of subversive spiritual discourses that call on adherents to think beyond the individual and even out into the environment, claims to counter the problems of unbridled capitalism with charitable giving or “conscious capitalism,” challenges to the imperialism behind the appropriation and commodification of products from yoga to mindfulness, calls for women’s empowerment, and efforts to greenwash commodities, making them more environmentally “friendly” or “sustainable.” Rather than a mode through which consumers ignore, escape, or are numbed to the problems of neoliberal capitalism, many spiritual industries, corporations, entrepreneurs, and consumers, the book suggests, do actually acknowledge those problems and, in fact, subvert them; but they subvert them through mere gestures. From provocative taglines printed across T-shirts or packaging to calls for “conscious capitalism,” commodification serves as a strategy through which subversion itself is contained.


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