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WORK TITLE: Fifty Million Rising
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Geneva
STATE:
COUNTRY: Switzerland
NATIONALITY: Pakistani
Head of Education, Gender and Work and a Member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum.
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Pakistan.
EDUCATION:Smith College, bachelor’s degree; Graduate Institute of International Studies (Geneva, Switzerland), master’s degree; Harvard University, M.P.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Economist and writer. World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland, head of Education, Gender, and Work group, member of Executive Committee.
AWARDS:Financial Times/McKinsey Bracken Bower Prize, 2014, for proposal for Fifty Million Rising.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Saadia Zahidi is a Pakistani economist and writer. She is based in Geneva, Switzerland. Zahidi holds a bachelor’s degree from Smith College, as well as master’s degrees from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva and from Harvard University. She is the head of Education, Gender, and Work group and a member of Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum.
In 2018, Zahidi released her first book, Fifty Million Rising: The New Generation of Working Women Transforming the Muslim World. Her 2014 proposal for the volume won the Financial Times/McKinsey Bracken Bower Prize. In the volume, she reveals the results of interviews with 200 Muslim women about their economic prospects, their education, and their jobs. The women came from sixteen different countries, mostly in the Middle East and Africa. Based on what she learned from talking to these women, Zahidi argues that Muslim women have more opportunities than ever before and suggests that gender equality will continue to improve in Muslim countries in the years to come. She notes that an important aspect in improving women’s lives is to allow them access to education. Muslim countries around the world have recently begun pushing initiatives on educating young women. Leaders of those countries realize that giving women access to education makes them better participants in the workforce and improves the country’s overall economy. Zahidi profiles specific women’s initiatives in countries, including the United Arab Emirates. She also tells the stories of individual women she interviewed, including one whose father kept her from working even after she attended college. The figure of fifty million in the book’s title represents the number of women who have begun working in Muslim countries since 2000.
In an interview with Emma Bartley, contributor to the Abu Dhabi National website, Zahidi discussed the changed being made in Muslim countries. She stated: “There have been different starting points, but across almost all the countries there have been massive investments in education, and the Gulf countries in particular are leaders when it comes to this. … Today, the results speak for themselves, with more women going to university than men, and nearly full enrollment in primary and secondary education.” Zahidi added: “One of the most fascinating differences between these countries and the West is how they’re using the gig economy and platforms. In Europe and the U.S. it’s disrupting a lot of professions and creating precarious work for people who were expecting more traditional employment. In the Muslim world … working through the gig economy is actually seen as some of the safest and most stable work you can find.”
Critics offered favorable assessments of Fifty Million Rising. Laura Chanoux, reviewer in Booklist, asserted: “In this fascinating look at a monumental shift, Zahidi elevates the voices of women across the world.” “Zahidi’s report provides a valuable baseline for measuring future progress and helps to debunk Western myths,” remarked a Publishers Weekly contributor. A writer in Kirkus Reviews suggested: “Zahidi makes her literary debut with an informative and revealing look at the work life of Muslim women.” The same writer described the book as “a well-documented and fresh perspective on Muslim society.” Shaista Aziz, critic on the Financial Times Online, called the book “a detailed and deeply informative look at the changing nature of work … for Muslim women.” Aziz also commented: “Zahidi strikes an optimistic tone about governments making structural changes to increase gender parity. The result is engaging and intelligent. In just over a decade, more than fifty million Muslim women have joined the workforce—challenging the status quo in their own societies and beyond. These women have gained economic independence, autonomy and control over their lives.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, December 15, 2017, Laura Chanoux, review of Fifty Million Rising: The New Generation of Working Women Revolutionizing the Muslim World, p. 81.
Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2017, review of Fifty Million Rising.
Publishers Weekly, December 4, 2017, review of Fifty Million Rising, p. 54.
ONLINE
Big Think, http://bigthink.com/ (May 7, 2018), author profile.
Financial Times Online, https://www.ft.com/ (January 29, 2018), Shaista Aziz, review of Fifty Million Rising.
National Online (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates), https://www.thenational.ae/ (February 13, 2018), Emma Bartley, author interview.
United Nations Secretary General Website, http://hlp-wee.unwomen.org/ (May 7, 2018), author profile.
Saadia Zahidi is head of Education, Gender and Work and a member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum. She is a founder and co-author of the WEF’s Global Gender Gap, Human Capital, Future of Jobs and Towards a Reskilling Revolution reports. In 2013 and 2014, she was named one of BBC’s 100 Women driving change in economics, politics, and society. She is the recipient of the Financial Times/McKinsey Bracken Brower Prize, promoting young authors writing on emerging business themes. Her first book, Fifty Million Rising, covers the rise of working women in the Muslim World and how economics trumps culture in this unique revolution.
Ms. Saadia Zahidi
Head of Education, Gender and Work Initiatives, World Economic Forum
Saadia Zahidi is Head of Education, Gender and Work and a
Member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic
Forum. Under her leadership, the Forum’s System Initiative on
Education, Gender and Work seeks to combine insights and action,
producing unique analysis and mobilizing leaders to work together
to set targets for impact, share best practices, create new publicprivate
partnerships, muster resources and change mind-sets.
Saadia founded and co-authors the Forum’s Global Gender Gap
Report, Human Capital Report and Future of Jobs Report. She
advises CEOs and governments on gender equality, jobs, skills
education and other talent issues.
She is a frequent speaker at international conferences and in the media. She was selected as one of
BBC’s 100 Women in 2013 and 2014 and won the inaugural FT/Mckinsey Bracken Bower Prize.
She is writing a book on “Womenomics in the Muslim World”. She is from Pakistan.
SAADIA ZAHIDI
Director of Constituents at the World Economic Forum
Saadia Zahidi is a Director and Head of Constituents at the World Economic Forum. In this role, she is responsible for engaging women leaders, gender parity groups, religious leaders, NGOs and labor leaders. She is also co-author of the Forum’s "Global Gender Gap Report," a benchmark in global research on the gap in parity between women and men.
Zahidi previously worked as an economist with the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Program. She has a bachelor's degree from Smith College and a master's degree in international economics from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.
QUOTED: "There have been different starting points, but across almost all the countries there have been massive investments in education, and the Gulf countries in particular are leaders when it comes to this. ... Today, the results speak for themselves, with more women going to university than men, and nearly full enrolment in primary and secondary education."
"One of the most fascinating differences between these countries and the West is how they’re using the gig economy and platforms. In Europe and the US it’s disrupting a lot of professions and creating precarious work for people who were expecting more traditional employment. In the Muslim world ... working through the gig economy is actually seen as some of the safest and most stable work you can find."
How 50 million women are transforming the Muslim world
Saadia Zahidi’s latest book charts a cultural revolution that is seeing a female-led transformation of the workplace
Emma Bartley
Emma Bartley
February 13, 2018
Updated: February 13, 2018 10:01 AM
191
shares
Saadia Zahidi, Head of Education, Gender and Work, Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum. Copyright by World Economic Forum / Sandra Blaser
Saadia Zahidi, Head of Education, Gender and Work, Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum. Copyright by World Economic Forum / Sandra Blaser
Amal is chief happiness officer at Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid’s innovation office in Dubai. Hawazen, based in Riyadh, works for a pharmaceutical company. In Rawalpindi, Saadia is a manager at McDonald’s. In Cairo, Amira created an online magazine, while Mozah runs a catering business.
To economist Saadia Zahidi, they are all part of a cultural revolution that has taken 50 million women into the labour forces of 30 primarily Muslim countries. Yet while interviewing them for her book, 50 Million Rising: The New Generation of Working Women Transforming the Muslim World, Zahidi found that most of them had never considered their work as part of a wider picture.
“I was surprised that lots of them were not aware of this shift that is happening; they thought that they were exceptions,” she says, speaking from her office at the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, where she is head of education, gender and work. “Talking to them, there was a sense of pride that they were part of this larger movement.”
Growing up in Pakistan, Zahidi was always aware that some women went out to work. Several of her relatives worked in “socially acceptable” female professions such as teaching and medicine.
But if one moment inspired her to pursue a different kind of career, it was when, aged 10, she visited her father at work on a gas field and encountered a female field engineer living and working alongside the men, wearing a hard hat and boots with her shalwar kameez. The woman’s name was Nazia and, as Zahidi writes in the first few pages of the book, “once seen she could never be unseen”.
The story serves as a kind of parable for the 50 million, who are educating their daughters and inspiring women around them. The Muslim world has now reached a tipping point, Zahidi argues, with women beginning to expect not just education but careers, contributing almost $1 trillion (Dh3.8tn) a year to their economies and changing the fabric of their societies. By 2025, another 50 million will be earning and spending, creating businesses and finding more ways of running their households.
It seems a rapid change, but in many places the groundwork was laid decades ago, notbaly in the United Arab Emirates, where universal education has been promoted since
the 1970s.
“There have been different starting points, but across almost all the countries there have been massive investments in education, and the Gulf countries in particular are leaders when it comes to this,” says Zahidi. “Today, the results speak for themselves, with more women going to university than men, and nearly full enrolment in primary and secondary education.”
Globalisation has helped women to translate their academic achievements into rewarding careers, as international employers search for the best talent of either gender. Technology raises awareness of what women are achieving abroad, and creates business opportunities such as the niche filled by Samira, a software engineer featured in Zahidi’s book, and who created a ride-sharing app to help women get safely to work in Cairo.
“There’s a new energy in this space that in large part is about technological change putting the possibility of economic opportunity into the hands of a lot more people,” Zahidi says. “One of the most fascinating differences between these countries and the West is how they’re using the gig economy and platforms. In Europe and the US it’s disrupting a lot of professions and creating precarious work for people who were expecting more traditional employment. In the Muslim world, there were no traditional arrangements, so working through the gig economy is actually seen as some of the safest and most stable work you can find.”
Having a young workforce helps: the book refers to a “youth bulge” – one third of the population in Egypt and Pakistan is aged 15 to 29 – and the advent of a new generation “that holds new attitudes, has acquired new knowledge, and uses new technologies that were never available to the generation before them”. This is in contrast to the ageing populations of countries such as the UK and the US, where “baby boomers” voted overwhelmingly for Brexit and President Donald Trump.
Of course, the older generation in the Muslim world has some adjusting to do. One of the biggest issues faced by the 50 million is navigating how their paid work affects their families and domestic lives. Of the 200 working women Zahidi spoke to from 16 countries, many had adopted what she terms a Third Way – continuing to take responsibility for unpaid household work, but outsourcing certain tasks such as childcare, cooking and cleaning, either to their parents or paid domestic help.
In doing so, they have created yet more economic opportunities, whether for cooks such as Mozah, or the Kazakh entrepreneurs who offer a “mother-in-law gift basket” to help working women maintain the norms of sending elaborate gifts to their husbands’ mothers. And they have largely managed to appease the patriarchy.
“There might be people who ideologically are opposed to women being outside the home, but most of the families I spoke to have recognised that there is a return,” Zahidi says. “That comes in the form of economic value, but also a different kind of respect and social power that comes from education.”
For Zahidi, “educated women in Muslim-majority countries may represent the world’s greatest waste of skilled talent – and human potential”.
The economist is also frank about the apparent link between the increase in numbers of women going out to work and rising divorce rates. While there are many forces in play, the author agrees that financial independence helps women to put their own happiness first. “If you’re a young woman with your own economic independence and you’re not happy in your relationship, you have a lot more options than your parents’ generation, where your mother was wholly dependent on your father in terms of financial support, transport and so on,” she says.
The book was written just before the scandal around Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein made sexual harassment a hot topic, but Zahidi points out that, in many cases, families and employers are well ahead on the matter. “Because of the cultural barriers that might prevent families from allowing their daughters to work, companies have had to put in place very strict criteria and really take action around them,” she says. “Saadia’s family was convinced to allow her to work at McDonald’s because they were able to see that harassment would be dealt with very strictly.”
It would be an exaggeration to call 50 Million Rising the Muslim world’s answer to Lean In: a mixture of analysis and anecdote, the book lacks Sheryl Sandberg’s pithy professional advice. Nonetheless, Zahidi wrote it partly in the hope that she could help women like Amal, Hawazen, Saadia, Amira and Mozah to recognise their own power.
Published by Nation Books, 50 Million Rising: The New Generation of Working Women Transforming the Muslim World was released on January 30
Saadia Zahidi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Saadia Zahidi
Photo of Saadia Zahidi
Saadia Zahidi in 2009
Born Pakistan
Alma mater
Smith College
Graduate Institute Geneva
Harvard University
Scientific career
Fields Economics
Institutions World Economic Forum
Saadia Zahidi is the Head of Education, Gender and Work and a Member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum. She co-authors the Forum's Future of Jobs, Global Gender Gap, and Global Human Capital Reports.[1][2][3][4]
She won the Financial Times and McKinsey Bracken Bower Prize for young business authors for her business book proposal, Womenomics in the Muslim World.[5] Zahidi is the author of Fifty Million Rising due to be published by Nation Books in January 2018.[6]
She is honoured in BBC'S 100 Women in 2013 and 2014.[7][8]
Zahidi grew up in Pakistan.[2] She gained a bachelor's degree in economics from Smith College, a master's in international economics from Graduate Institute Geneva, and an MPA from Harvard University.[4]
QUOTED: "In this fascinating look at a monumental shift, Zahidi elevates the voices of women across the world."
Fifty Million Rising: The New Generation of Working Women Revolutionizing the Muslim World
Laura Chanoux
Booklist. 114.8 (Dec. 15, 2017): p81.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
Fifty Million Rising: The New Generation of Working Women Revolutionizing the Muslim World.
By Saadia Zahidi.
Jan. 2018. 288p. Nation, $28 (9781568585901). 305.48.
In the past several decades, Muslim-majority countries across the world have seen a dramatic economic shift with the entrance of women into the workforce. Economist Zahidi examines the origins of women's economic participation and the structures that have supported its growth in recent generations, balancing analysis with interviews that give a personal face to the statistics. She speaks with ambitious women across 30 countries about their education, family structures, childcare systems, expectations, and barriers. Zahidi outlines the "third path" that many women choose, by which they pursue both careers and traditional family life while relying on nannies or extended family. Technology has enabled women to start businesses while staying within gendered boundaries. Other women are the primary breadwinners through informal businesses, such as selling toys from home. Zahidi also examines the structures necessary to support working women, including access to affordable childcare and safe public transportation. In this fascinating look at a monumental shift, Zahidi elevates the voices of women across the world who speak about their motivations, successes, and challenges in forging new paths.--Laura Chanoux
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Chanoux, Laura. "Fifty Million Rising: The New Generation of Working Women Revolutionizing the Muslim World." Booklist, 15 Dec. 2017, p. 81. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A521459538/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=5030d825. Accessed 14 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A521459538
QUOTED: "Zahidi's report provides a valuable baseline for measuring future progress and helps to debunk Western myths."
Fifty Million Rising: The New Generation of Working Women Revolutionizing the Muslim World
Publishers Weekly. 264.49-50 (Dec. 4, 2017): p54.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Fifty Million Rising: The New Generation of Working Women Revolutionizing the Muslim World
Saadia Zahidi. Nation, $28 (288p) ISBN 978-156858-590-1
Economist Zahidi offers an enthusiastic report on the paradigms shifting across Muslim-majority countries as women enter the workforce in droves, creating massive social and economic change. Acknowledging that the Muslim world "covers a vast spread of geographies, cultures, and economies," Zahidi finds common ground in the positive effects of women joining the workforce, including the availability of disposable income and growing independence for women--aided by the "virtuous cycle" of shrinking education gaps between men and women. Though she excerpts interviews with fascinating women including CEOs, doctors, Islamic scholars, and domestic workers, Zahidi shows more comfort with the number crunching of economic indicators such as wages, GDPs, and employment percentages than with a nuanced exploration of the everyday lives of women, such as the persistent challenge of trying to balance feminism and tradition. Optimistic about women's "widening set of choices" and the capacity for businesses and governments to initiate societal change in efforts such as recruitment and retention, Zahidi's report provides a valuable baseline for measuring future progress and helps to debunk Western myths about Muslim women. (Feb.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Fifty Million Rising: The New Generation of Working Women Revolutionizing the Muslim World." Publishers Weekly, 4 Dec. 2017, p. 54. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A518029518/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=2b68afba. Accessed 14 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A518029518
QUOTED: "Zahidi makes her literary debut with an informative and revealing look at the work life of Muslim women."
"a well-documented and fresh perspective on Muslim society."
Zahidi, Saadia: FIFTY MILLION RISING
Kirkus Reviews. (Dec. 1, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Zahidi, Saadia FIFTY MILLION RISING Nation Books (Adult Nonfiction) $27.00 1, 30 ISBN: 978-1-56858-590-1
How an influx of working women is changing the Muslim world.
Head of Education, Gender, and Work at the World Economic Forum, Zahidi makes her literary debut with an informative and revealing look at the work life of Muslim women throughout the Middle East and South, Central, and East Asia. Drawing from interviews in 16 countries with 200 women from different classes and professions, the author paints an optimistic picture of women's increasing participation in the economies and politics of their communities. With policymakers and business leaders in mind, she bolsters her profiles of individual women with persuasive statistics about women's work and its impact on family dynamics, businesses, and education. Since 2000, 50 million women have joined the workforce throughout the Muslim region, an unprecedented increase in less than a generation. Zahidi points to several reasons for this astonishing change: an expansion of girls' education, with some governments, such as the United Arab Emirates, making "deliberate efforts" to bring educated women into the workforce; a decline in fertility, freeing women from prolonged infant care; increased funding for women-owned businesses; and technology, which allows women to work flexibly, connect with customers easily, and become exposed "to the aspirations of women around the world." Crucial to women's ability to work is the cooperation of husbands, brothers, and fathers; one woman, allowed to go to university, was held back from working by her father, who insisted "that she observe the strictest rules of female seclusion." Zahidi was heartened to learn that educated women are seen as good marriage prospects, and the dual-career family is accepted--and even desired--by younger women and men who "have lost interest in reliving the traditional breadwinner and caregiving model of their own fathers and mothers." Despite some legal and societal challenges that still exist to impede women's agency, Zahidi looks forward to a "prosperous, dynamic" future for Muslim women.
A well-documented and fresh perspective on Muslim society.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Zahidi, Saadia: FIFTY MILLION RISING." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Dec. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A516024654/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=3541793b. Accessed 14 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A516024654
QUOTED: "a detailed and deeply informative look at the changing nature of work ... for Muslim women."
"Zahidi strikes an optimistic tone about governments making structural changes to increase gender parity. The result is engaging and intelligent. In just over a decade, more than fifty million Muslim women have joined the workforce — challenging the status quo in their own societies and beyond. These women have gained economic independence, autonomy and control over their lives."
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Fifty Million Rising by Saadia Zahidi
Muslim women are gaining economic independence and control
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Review by Shaista Aziz JANUARY 29, 2018 Print this page4
Saadia Zahidi’s debut book proposal won the inaugural 2014 Financial Times and McKinsey Bracken Bower prize for young business authors. The finished product has just been published: Fifty Million Rising provides a detailed and deeply informative look at the changing nature of work and employment for Muslim women, including drives to increase girls’ access to education and women’s participation in the labour market.
The head of gender, education and work at the World Economic Forum, starts with some facts about Muslim women in business that do not sit comfortably with many widely held assumptions and stereotypes — notably that Muslim women lack agency and autonomy.
Zahidi’s opening chapter sets the tone, citing the example of Khadija al Kubra, a businesswoman who inherited her father’s business. She offered a job to a man and shared with him her business acumen so together they could expand trading across the Middle East. The man was the Prophet Muhammad; they later married.
For many Muslim women, Khadija is their first role model, representing the history of women in Islam. Her independence, skills and power are celebrated. And Khadija’s position as the prophet’s trusted first wife, one of the greatest influences and supports in his life, contrasts with how patriarchy and cultures restrict and hold back many Muslim women — denied their rights and unable reach their potential.
Zahidi takes the reader on a journey through 16 countries across Asia, the Middle East and the Gulf. Her study examines these restrictions, but major shifts in the last decade have enabled women to access the job market in ways their grandmothers and even mothers never could.
This “powerful revolution” is transforming economies and cultures and challenging patriarchal norms for women from Pakistan, Jordan, and Egypt to Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. Often this change is met with a powerful pushback from older women — more often than not the custodians of social rules — and of course from men, old and young, struggling to keep up with change and unsure of their own roles. (This, of course, is not unique to the so-called Muslim world.)
Zahidi makes maximum use of her expertise and networks in Saudi Arabia, still mostly closed off to the majority of westerners and journalists which limits the stories we hear about Saudi women. Through the women she interviews, we learn that Saudi Arabia has high divorce rates and that being a divorcee in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates no longer has the taboo it once did. For many, divorce (no longer depending on a man) has spurred them on to gain economic independence.
Some of the most revealing and engaging testimony, and analysis from the author, is from Pakistan — where Zahidi grew up. In Pakistan we see clearly the disconnect between record levels of women in higher education and qualifying as medical doctors, and cultural practices that mean women are expected to marry young, have families early and give up their ambitions. We learn about women in Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan and Iran using technology and the internet to set up medicine portals and run transport initiatives from their homes, enabling other women to access services otherwise out of reach because of their gender. Technology has transformed how women work, often from home, setting up businesses and earning good money.
We meet the McDonald's workers in Islamabad, creating career paths while having to battle their families’ attitudes over the company’s “westernised” uniform — women from the upper classes do not have to follow the same codes as women from the lower classes and are judged for their choices. We also meet the male CEOs and managers restructuring to ensure women are given greater opportunities to flourish.
Zahidi strikes an optimistic tone about governments making structural changes to increase gender parity. The result is engaging and intelligent. In just over a decade, more than fifty million Muslim women have joined the workforce — challenging the status quo in their own societies and beyond. These women have gained economic independence, autonomy and control over their lives.
The reviewer is an Oxford-based writer
Fifty Million Rising, by Saadia Zahidi, Nation Books, $28