Doha International Family Institute Journal - Protecting the Arab Family from Poverty: Employment, Social Integration and Intergenerational Solidarity, March 2015

Families play an important role in social integration because they shape the social relations between men and women and between generations. Gender and youth issues dominate the public debate about the future of the countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), so relations formed within the family are important for social integration. The division of labor and the balance of power within the family influences how gender equity issues play out in the society at large. Likewise, the decision made by parents regarding investment in the education of their children has implications for the relations between young and old. The last few decades have witnessed a dramatic transformation of the family in most countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), with implications for greater social integration of these societies. This transformation is characterized by decline in fertility and increase in investment in children, which implies change in the relationships between men and women as well as between parents and children. In this paper I take a comparative view of the MENA region's economic-demographic transition, defined as decline in fertility associated with increased child schooling.

With the end of the Cold War in the nineties and the acceleration of the process of globalization, came the rise of neoliberal policies and the Washington Consensus, which sidelined the social dimension of economic growth. Reconnecting with the pre-Keynesian liberal theories, the major conceptual tools and outcomes of this school of thought converged towards considering, that the market would be in charge of redistributing resources, with less state intervention, and that wealth would trickle down through economic growth from the top to bottom. What the last few decades have explicitly shown however, are the unaccomplished promises of these theories.

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the socio-economic, cultural and political spheres that affect women, particularly in terms of education, have undergone considerable changes in recent years. Research has indicated a close relationship between education/training and employment. However, the dramatic increase in the number of educated women in the MENA region is not reflected in their participation in the labour market, which remains low despite an increase in recent years. The fundamental, long-standing puzzle of the relatively low labour-market participation of women in the MENA region relates to an issue that has recently been at the core of studies in the social sciences, namely work and family reconciliation. Partly reflecting this, appropriate policies have increasingly become part of employment-led social policy, as well as neo-liberal programmes, in the EU and its member states. However, in developing nations, and in MENA in particular, the problem of work–family balance has not yet been expressed to the same extent, and there is a dearth of literature on this matter. This is not to imply that no action is being taken, or that work-family policies have not advanced in MENA, or that several countries in the region have undertaken considerable reform in recent years.

This paper will discuss work and family reconciliation strategies implemented in MENA, with particular reference to four selected case studies—Iran, Qatar, Tunisia and Turkey. Recommendations will be proposed for the further development of policies, programmes and strategies that support parenthood, and in reconciling work and family life in MENA. This is crucial given global changes in the working world. There is also increasing awareness that it will be difficult to achieve the Millennium Development Goals if they do not focus on families. The twentieth anniversary of the International Year of the Family in 2014 offers an opportunity to highlight the family in all parts of the world and promote family-based solutions to attain development objectives.

يبحث هذا النص في موضوع سياسات مكافحة الفقر في البلدان العربية، من منظور الاسرة. وهو ما يستدعي تقديم بعض الافكار الجديدة في ما يتعلق بتعريف الفقر، وبتعريف الاسرة، من منظور يجمع بين الجانبين المفهومي والعملي في آن. ذلك انه اذا كان الهدف هو استخدام المعرفة من اجل صنع السياسات وتحسين معيشة الناس، فإن استخدام المفاهيم الخاطئة، والمنطلقات المجتزأة، من شأنه ان يدفع المعرفة والعمل في مسارات مضللة بعيدة عن تحقيق الفائدة المرجوة. لا بل ان ذلك قد يدفع احيانا في مسارات خاطئة او طرق مسدودة، فنهدر الموارد والطاقات، ونخطئ في التشخيص والتخطيط والتنفيذ. ولعل اشكالية العلاقة بين الفقر والاسرة هامة هنا. وقد يبدو الامر بديهيا في وجهة نظر معينة، بحيث لا يحتاج ذلك الى بحث يتجاوز الاساسيات المتعارف عليها. ولكن الامر اكثر تعقيدا مما يبدو عليه في المقاربات التقليدية، وهو ما يحفز على استحضار افكار جديدة وضخها في النقاش الدائر، وان تكن غير مكتملة بعد. وهذا النص نقدي، ويسائل الاجوبة التقليدية في مقاربة الفقر وعلاقته بالاسرة، دون ادعاء التوصل الى نتائج حاسمة. ولكن التساؤل والشك هما مفتاح المعرفة واليقين )وان كانا نسبيين بالضرورة(.

The family has always been the center of social life in the Arab region.(2) It is the core of society and is rab countries, the family is the man social security system for the elderly, sick or disabled, and the economic refuge for the unemployed. Parents are responsible for children until they marry or become economically independent. Children reciprocate by assuming responsibility for the care of their parents as they grow older. Therefore, the health and wellbeing of newly formed families are crucial to the health and wellbeing of Arab societies at large not only today, but also well into the future.

The Arab family is a mental construct, a demographic formula, a political institution, but above all a legal and moral fact! It is best understood in terms of Weber's ‘ideal type’, a term that refers to multiple forms in which kin relations in Arab countries are organized. No matter how different, imperfect, dysfunctional or partial they are all called families!

Educational attainment and economic need are factors that contribute to female labor supply, while the structure of the economy and the development strategy in place create demand for female labor in both public and private sectors. Other factors that shape female labor supply are age, marital status, and the presence of young children. Across the world, as the female share of the global work force has grown to near parity with that of men, even mothers of small children have achieved labor force attachment. And yet, the double burden that they face is a matter of concern for policymakers and women's rights advocates alike. Moreover, this burden is complicated by social class. Upper-income women are able to secure the services of a nanny or an expensive childcare center, which enables them to remain at their professions. Such an option is not, however, available to most middle-class women, and certainly not to women from working-class or low-income households. In many countries where statutory paid maternity leaves are available, such leaves are available only to women in the formal sector and they are of short duration, leaving working mothers dissatisfied and anxious. Where mothers have the possibility of lengthy, unpaid maternity leaves, their status in the workplace and possibility for advancement or promotion may diminish.

Social security schemes in the MENA region face challenges in terms of effectiveness, sustainability and governance. Large groups of the population remain out of the social security system. Access to basic pension, health services and education are essential to the well-being, and the lack of these services contributes to the persistence of poverty. All MENA countries – except Lebanon – have mandatory public pension schemes for at least part of the employees. In the region, the coverage rate is low with less than 40% of the working population covered by a public pension scheme. The Gulf States, Iran, Lebanon and Yemen suffer from the lowest coverage rates (between 5-30%). Morocco had one of the lowest levels of pension benefits and health insurance in the MENA region and populations were not able to afford the cost of access to health care, housing.

This paper focuses on poverty in the MENA region and whether it can be alleviated by intergenerational support within and across households. Intergenerational relations are mediated through several institutions. The most prominent of these are households, state, civil society and market. Combinations of social arrangements, economic resources and cultural traditions govern these institutions. Whether or not family and households can provide the necessary supports for their poorer or disadvantaged members would crucially depend on household composition, its economic resources and its interaction with the institutions of state, civil society and market. This paper also explores the trends in family formation and composition over time and household interaction with the above mentioned institutions through the labour market, or through various state and NGO driven welfare programmes. The above trends as well as migration impact the intergenerational support within families. This paper will argue for improved social support and regional integration in order to complement family resources as well as tackle some of the emerging issues in relation to population ageing and care economy in the region.

Achieving the objective of poverty reduction/eradication and promotion of social integration depends crucially on the expansion of productive and decent employment. Identifying the characteristics and trends of these three dimensions of the economy and society, as well as the linkages between them, is crucial for the design of policies that would contribute positively to increasing the welfare of Arab citizens.¹

The paper examines first the nexus of employment, poverty and social protection from the time reforms were initiated in most Arab countries since the early 1990s till today. In doing so, the paper reviews key economic, labor and social developments up to the dawn of the Arab Spring, as well as explanations that have been put forward by various analysts regarding the causes of the uprisings. Countries in the Arab region did not make the progress the designers and proponents of economic reforms claimed, nor did employment creation lag behind or poverty increase, as advocated by the critics. The paper puts forward the proposition that while many governments, international organizations, and local and regional analysts have put much emphasis on issues pertaining to Arab youth, most problems are structural and affect equally, if not more, the adult and aging populations.

After identifying some critical facts in the areas of employment, human capital development and social protection, the paper re-evaluates some of the policies Arab countries have pursued so far and proposes new ones that could contribute to the creation of sustainable and decent employment, and therefore increase the prosperity of Arab citizens both within the economy and in society.