Bleak career prospects for UAE moms



More than two-thirds of UAE companies do not intend to increase the number of working mothers on their staff this year, citing concerns that female employees with children may take time off to have another child, according to a new study.

Only 32 per cent of companies in the UAE said they planned to increase the proportion of female staff with children during the year, according to the report by Regus, an international office space letting agency.

The figures match a global downturn in the number of companies seeking to boost representation of working mothers in the office.

Internationally, just 36 per cent of the 10,000 companies surveyed said they intended to hire more working mothers, compared to 44 per cent of firms last year.

The study attributed the drop to employer concerns that family priorities may distract working mothers.

About half the surveyed employers in the UAE said flexibility was their main concern, and 45 per cent said their main worry was that women may take time off to have another child.

However, experts and employers agreed that this was not a valid concern and that more focus needed to be placed on an employee’s skill set, rather than gender.

“If employers want to recoup their investment in women and retain them for the long term, they need to better appreciate how much turnover and job dissatisfaction can be driven by non-work factors,” said Dr May al Dabbagh, the director of the gender and public policy programme at the Dubai School of Government.

“Numerous research findings show that, globally, the return on investment in women is exceptionally high because of their hardworking capacity.”

Some international companies, at least, do seem to acknowledge the value that women, including working mothers, add to the workforce, and are beginning to take action accordingly.

Tariq Baloch, a UAE associate at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, an international law firm, said his company had recently tried to dispel the notion that a woman in a law firm – which required intensive hours – had to give up the hope of having children and a family.

“In four specific cases we have allowed young mothers working in our group to have flexible working time. We know there is a lot of work to be done, but they need not be at the workplace and the partners are confident they can leave early and login from home to work there when needed,” Mr Baloch said.

“The motivation for this arrangement was the desire of the partners not to lose their star associates to the stereotype that once they were mothers they could no longer have a place within [the group].”

While the number of employers willing to hire working mothers has dwindled, Regus officials said the UAE was reported to have the highest level of female participation in employment in the GCC, with 59 per cent of women contributing to the economy.

Different companies had to use different strategies to foster the kind of culture that values and encourages the contribution of women to the work context, Dr al Dabbagh said, rather than focusing on outdated or superficial indicators such as “face time” at the office.

“If companies want to remain competitive, and attract and retain talent, they need to shed the old mindset. It is clear that outdated work models are detrimental to a company in the long term,” she said.

mismail@thenational.ae

Dubai Bling season three

Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed 

Rating: 1/5

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: ARDH Collective
Based: Dubai
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Sector: Sustainability
Total funding: Self funded
Number of employees: 4
Pathaan
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Siddharth%20Anand%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Shah%20Rukh%20Khan%2C%20Deepika%20Padukone%2C%20John%20Abraham%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%203%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Other workplace saving schemes
  • The UAE government announced a retirement savings plan for private and free zone sector employees in 2023.
  • Dubai’s savings retirement scheme for foreign employees working in the emirate’s government and public sector came into effect in 2022.
  • National Bonds unveiled a Golden Pension Scheme in 2022 to help private-sector foreign employees with their financial planning.
  • In April 2021, Hayah Insurance unveiled a workplace savings plan to help UAE employees save for their retirement.
  • Lunate, an Abu Dhabi-based investment manager, has launched a fund that will allow UAE private companies to offer employees investment returns on end-of-service benefits.
The Sand Castle

Director: Matty Brown

Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea

Rating: 2.5/5

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”