Conceptualizing Saudi women's participation in the knowledge economy: the role of education

Abstract

This paper is part of a project that aims to conceptualize the knowledge economy (KE) in the Saudi context, focusing on gender in relation to education, employment, human development index, innovation, and ICT. It uses a quantitative methodology. However, the used data is secondary data collected from different government and non-government sources. Different statistical analysis methods were conducted including descriptive statistics, graphs, correlation, and trend analysis. The paper found that despite the importance placed on KE and women empowerment (Saudi Vision, 2030), gender discrepancies were observed in relation to employment, innovation and ICT. Those components, according to our data, are positively correlated with the current Saudi ranking under KEI. The paper shows that although the rate of female graduates from higher education is slightly higher than male, this difference was not translated into participation in the labor market, particularly in jobs related to KE. It was also found that though Saudi Arabia's ranking under innovation and ICT was internationally low, there was a lack of public information regarding the gender dimension. This suggests that gender was not understood as a crucial factor in improving the country's ranking under those components. The paper concludes by highlighting the national innovation system's shortfalls as reflected by education, patents, and innovation. It suggests further investigations into utilizing women under jobs related to KE and calls for including the gender dimension as a variable in any future planning or studies related to the knowledge economy.

Keywords

• Knowledge economy
• Higher education
• Female labor force participation
• Human development index
• Saudi Arabia
• Gender gap