Women working in lab. (Photo: Shutterstock.com/dotshock)
The MENAAP region stands at a pivotal moment, amid shifting global economic conditions, and persistent regional uncertainty, fragility, and profound demographic transformation. Its working-age population is projected to grow by about 220 million over the next quarter-century—close to a 40 percent rise, the second largest across all regions (figure 1). So far, however, MENAAP economies have failed to generate the jobs needed to capitalize on a once-promising demographic dividend.
Figure 1: Change in working-age population 2025-2050
Source: Gatti et al. (2025), Jobs and Women: Untapped Talent, Unrealized Growth, MENAAP Economic Update (October).
The rapidly rising old-age dependency ratios will soon strain GDP growth, fiscal balances, and social protection systems. We will have about 3.5 people in the labor force per elderly person by 2050, just above the danger zone where pension systems start sweating and fiscal balances start wobbling (figure 2).
Figure 2: Inverse Dependency Ratio in MENAAP
Source: Gatti et al. (2025), Jobs and Women: Untapped Talent, Unrealized Growth, MENAAP Economic Update (October).
Yet, there is one lever that can bend this trajectory: expanding labor force participation among women. Despite enrollment and graduation rates comparable to or higher than those of men in most MENAAP countries, the average rate of female labor market participation in the region remains the lowest in the world (figure 3). Only about 1 in 5 working-age women participate in the labor market in our region.
Figure 3: Share of women (age 15+) in the labor force
Source: Gatti et al. (2025), Jobs and Women: Untapped Talent, Unrealized Growth, MENAAP Economic Update (October).
Low female participation is the result of a set of mutually reinforcing constraints (figure 4). Contextual factors such as restrictive social norms and unequal laws, depress both women’s willingness and ability to work and employers’ demand. Social norms—often misperceived by individuals as even more restrictive than they actually are—remain more traditional than among global peers. Many countries in the region still lack basic legal provisions for equal pay, flexible work, safe transportation, and protection from harassment, and in several cases, women cannot obtain jobs on the same terms as men. On the supply side, safety and mobility constraints—including concerns about harassment and unreliable transport—combined with unaffordable, inaccessible, and inadequate childcare, make working outside the home costly for women. On the demand side, a stagnant private sector creates too few quality jobs. Gender discrimination persists, particularly for customer-facing roles and in smaller firms. The public sector’s magnetic pull draws high-skilled women away from entrepreneurship and private sector careers. Together, these forces produce a low-participation, low-growth equilibrium: wide gender gaps in labor force entry, higher unemployment among female jobseekers, concentration of employed women in public sector jobs, and large wage penalties, especially for the low skilled.
Figure 4: Female labor force participation is shaped by the interaction between supply and demand-side constraints and contextual distortions like restrictive social norms and legal barriers