Empowering women and fostering fertility : two conflicting policy goals in Qatar?

Abstract

Non-nationals comprise 91 per cent of Qatar’s population. In response to the challenge to nationhood it faces, Qatar applies an unwavering pro-birth policy to nationals. But Qatar is also a resolutely modernising country whose government is keen to promote women’s full access to all levels of education and employment. Could it be that these two strategies—advocating women’s high fertility and supporting their enrolment at university and participation in the labour market— collide? The most recent statistical data show a spectacular progress in women’s education in a few generations, from a very low 1.9 years of schooling and a negligible proportion (0 percent) of women with a university education in the generations born before 1942 (aged 65 and over in the 2016 labour force survey), to a very high 11.4 years at school and an unmatched 46.6 per cent women with a university education in the generations born in 1987-1991 (aged 25-29 in 2016). The progress of women’s economic participation has been slower. Yet the proportion of economically active women—36.9 per cent in 2016—though it remains low by global standards, is fairly high compared with other Arab countries. Regarding fertility, the reprocessing of the most recent population census (2010) provides the following findings: • Total fertility has declined, but it remains high in relative terms (ca. 3 children per women) • Education is not a significant factor of fertility differentials, • Women’s economic participation is a key determinant of fertility decline, • Employing migrant domestic workers allows maintaining large families