Omani women of the XXI century are more educated and are in better career positions than their husbands. A surprising fact is women are the main family breadwinners in modern Oman, the recent study shows.
Omani women now earn more than double what their husbands do. While men have a secondary school certificate, their wives want more in the profession. The Omani girls used to think that the good education it is a matter of economy, so, they should pay more towards housekeeping finances.
Omani women say they need to go one step further with their education than men to prove their worth if they want to challenge traditions in their Middle Eastern patriarchal country.
As a study by Majan University College, Muscat, shows, about 40 per cent of working married women in Oman have a higher income than their husbands. In other terms, women and are the primary source of income as “breadwinners” for their families, Salim Al Jufaili, a socio-economic researcher at the Open University in Muscat, explained.
The 2019 study showed a dramatic shift in Omani homes and workplaces, and socio-economic experts say it also indicates that Omani women are now more educated and are in better career positions than their men.
The traditional trend was broken in the 1990s, since then, more Omani women have been getting into degree programmes than their male counterparts. The new generation of Omani women in their thirties confess they don’t accept the old-fashioned situation when their mothers being totally dominated by their fathers.
Nowadays, the tradition that the father must be the breadwinner is fast changing in Oman. There are many families where both the wife and the husband are contributing equally, sometimes the women of the house pay more.
Oman’s statistics show rising educational level of women
Official statistics from the Omani Ministry of Higher Education show there has been a change in university enrolment over the last decade, with around 65 per cent of those accepted on to degree courses women, compared to 42 per cent in the previous decade.
“Men tend to look for jobs when they finish school. That’s why our higher education institutions are predominantly girls. It does not surprise me that a good percentage of mothers are becoming breadwinners in their families,” said a socio-economist Qais Al-Qassmi.
