Women’s Life in the UAE as an Expat
Local Women’s Life in Dubai
In the UAE, women can only be local nationals if they were born to both UAE national parents. Nationality in the UAE is passed from father to their kids.
the man marries a non-UAE national woman and if the woman converts to Islam, then she can be nationalized. There are many Asian Nationals women due to marriage, but they are not socially accepted as UAE nationals.
UAE is a very woman-friendly country. Dubai was the first to treat women as equal to men, and most of the other Emirates followed. Still women feel freer in Dubai than any other Emirate. Until a few years back, women could not wear shorts above the knee in Al Sharika and in Abu Dhabi, women wearing shorts could not enter the malls.
Opportunities Available for UAE National Women
In Dubai and Abu Dhabi, women have all the means and opportunities that any woman can find in Western countries.
There are many women-owned businesses in the UAE. The Government of Dubai and Abu Dhabi encourage UAE local women’s business financially and they encourage companies (especially the state owned or partially owned companies) to hire women in high positions.
There are many very high-profile women in the UAE. For example, 8 out of 29 UAE cabinet members are women and listed below are the ministries that they occupy:
- Minister of State for Tolerance
- Cabinet Member, Minister of State for International Cooperation
- Cabinet Member, Minister of Social Development
- Cabinet Member, Minister of State for Public Education Affairs
- Minister of State
- Minister of State for Happiness
- Cabinet Member, Minister of State for FNC Affairs
- Minister of State for Youth Affairs
Also, there are female fighter jet pilots in the UAE military, there are many high profile CEOs, like the CEO of TECOM (one of the biggest free zone areas in Dubai) is a woman, also many billion-dollar business owners, and board of directors members of many high profile organizations such as the “Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce” are women.
With all the available opportunities for women in UAE, I cannot recall interacting with many expat women-owned companies. That may be because my work is in contracting and consulting which is a man dominated profession in UAE and most everywhere else in the world.
Even per 2016 statistics published by “The Embassy of UAE in Washington DC”, only 10% of companies are owned by majority women compared to 39% in the US (this number is per 2020 report published by NAWBO), and 17 to 32% UK companies founded by Women (depending what constitutes a women owned business).
Per the 2020 Global Gender Gap Index report prepared by the World Economic Forum, UAE ranked .96 and .97 in Education and Health sub-categories Indices respectively, which are extremely high. Overall rating, UAE ranked #2 in the middle east and #1 among all Arab countries.
Is empowering women in sync with UAE Long Term Goals?
Local women since the early 2000s (with Dubai and Abu Dhabi development booming) have been encouraged by the local government to work and be a productive part of society.
Due to the high standard of living, families started to encourage their daughters and wives to work. Of course, there are still social constraints but these are slowly dissolving. Women business owners have the same support as men, and sometimes even more.
Public and private companies are encouraged to hire women. In UAE most tellers in banks and similar governmental jobs start hiring mostly local women. Per UAE statistics, it seems 2 out of 3 public jobs are held by women.
By encouraging women to work, earn financial independence, and participate in the fiscal responsibilities of the family, the old social constraints and old traditions will slowly be replaced with more modern and compatible with the rest of the world. This helps the UAE open up further to the world economy and foreign investors.
I think women in the workforce help the UAE and other GCC countries in yet another way. By pushing women to work, UAE will naturally increase the percentage of the available local national workforce in the market.
Hence, the money spent on hiring more expats can be dedicated to educating and training local women and slowly reduce expat workforce and help recycle the money inside the country instead.
Please let me know if you are local from these countries and have different points of views.
Are Women Oppressed?
UAE is an Islamic country and follows the Sharia law when it comes to its local population. Per Sharia law, men can marry four wives at the same time.
Many modern men don’t follow that tradition anymore because many men now see family differently than their parents. Also, with this life sophistication and demands, many men cannot afford anymore having more than one wife.
In the old days, men would marry many wives and they all shared the same house. However, now each woman must have their own house, maid, car, driver …etc.
Since the UAE economical booming and increase of the local nationals purchasing power. Local women are very spoiled these days in the UAE, they enjoy a certain status.
Once a local female friend told me, “I don’t like to go to the US or Europe anymore, they are impolite.” I was shocked and asked what happened to her that she had that bad experience?
Her answer was, “nothing specific, but in general they are rude and impolite, they don’t respect me and treat me like a local woman, they treat me like any other woman” (that means by her standard, they don’t allow her to cut the lines in shopping areas, shout at people and order people to do things for her in public as everyone was her servant).
If I told her the truth she would have been mad and considered me impolite, so I smiled at her and said, “dear, that is because you are local in the UAE, in the US I am a local and not you”, she nodded with disapproval and disgust.
That type of behavior of entitlement is a normal thing for a local woman in UAE (that includes women from all GCC nationalities).
That is one of the main reasons why foreign domestic helpers and teachers, or anyone that deals with local housewives or mothers, complain.
Of course, there are exceptions and people are changing with time, but it is still something expats need to be careful when dealing with local women in the GCC.
I would strongly recommend no arguing, no long eye to eye contact, no smiling, and never flirt. I had my share of stupid angry moments, where I reacted to situations and I was so close to being in trouble (as an expat your goal is to be away from trouble, make money and go home).
The only reason I was not sent to jail is because I am an American.
Local women within their family
Due to the unique social fabric and big respect for traditions, men still have the leading role and responsibility within the family.
Married women have the expectation of having many kids as part of tradition. To encourage women to work while the couple are expected to have many kids, the government devised many laws giving women more flexibility at the workplace to find that balance between work and family.
In addition, traditionally both parents are expected to help their daughters, or daughters-in-law. The government also supports financially by launching programs to needy families by taking care of kid’s daycares and schooling expenses, offer financial grants, and no interest loans to the families.
Family ties and relationships are very strong and influential in all married couples’ lives. The families provide moral, financial support, and they support the working mother by taking care of the kids if the parent cannot afford nannies.
Keeping marriage inside first or second cousins is still a valid tradition. Marrying a non-Emirati woman or man however is highly discouraged, especially if it is the first marriage.
In UAE, all Muslim couple divorce (Talaq in Arabic) must follow the Sharia law. Hence, during divorce, by default the man gets custody of the kids and he may or may not choose to let the mother see the kids, depending on the divorce circumstances (the Sharia divorced laws are complicated and varies slightly between countries).
This is a huge problem for women in many cases that forces them to stay in an unhealthy relationship to avoid being kept away from the kids. But this is a rare case since families are often involved from the start and arbitrate in any disputes.
If the man is Muslim, which always the case to be a UAE national, the Sharia law governs over the federal law.
Divorce has many complicated rules depending on the circummures, reasons, type or Talaq ..etc. From my observations, in general, there is no alimony style financial requirement by either party.
In the UAE, there is a court fee of $2,000 – $2,500. Men keep the kids and support them while divorced wives go back to their parents house. There is something called “muakhar” which is a lump-sum agreement that men must pay which was agreed previously before marriage (like a prenup agreement). Of course, the above is a very simplistic version, there are many other complications and rules, which are typical for any law that spans for more than a thousand-year and changes and gets more complicated as life gets complicated.
Conclusion
Regardless of some common beliefs, UAE ranks high when it comes to women’s education and health, and also ranks very well when it comes to female participation in their economy.
The government, the country laws, and most modern families, encourage women participation in the economy and power-sharing.
Low ownership of a business can be attributed to women choosing to focus on family and traditional values over owning a business and working as employees which reduce responsibilities.
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