SAUDI families are overwhelmingly dependent - ninety percent, in fact - on one breadwinner, according to a study conducted by the National Initiative for Social Solidarity and published on June 26. The initiative is the first collaboration between the Ministry of Social Affairs and Derte Al-Ghaliah, a nonprofit organization concerned with cooperative efforts between private and governmental sectors to launch projects studying social and class issues. In particular, the organization focuses on social issues affecting those families that are a victim of poverty. This particular study asked the survey base whether their family was financially dependent on the breadwinner (in most cases, the father or husband) and whether they could personally help out with the expenses. About 300,000 copies of the survey were distributed at random amongst Saudi families both in urban and rural areas, including both men and women and randomly covering all ages. The survey contained questions about various social issues, and was distributed between March and May of this year. The results lean overwhelmingly toward the opinion that most Saudi families are dependent on the father, and the survey also revealed that most people confessed to being unable to help the breadwinner overcome financial difficulties and other social problems. Because there is only one breadwinner in most families, often a single person's salary is not able to fulfill the entire family's needs. The predictable response to this survey has of course, been a demand for more jobs and opportunities for Saudis, particularly for women. Many claim that there is so much dependence on one person's salary because of a lack of job opportunities for Saudi women, particularly in the public sector. “We cannot blame dependent family members for this problem or call them ‘dependent' as this is a social issue that has an impact on a family's financial situation,” remarked Trad Al-Asmari, a noted figure in Saudi media and member of the Jeddah Council for Development Work. According to Al-Asmari, a proportionally higher number of family members in the Kingdom are women and those women have not been given the relevant job opportunities to allow them to decrease their financial dependence on their father or husband. “Being unemployed is the basic element that makes most women dependent on the husband or father, but in reality, the Saudi woman can be very independent and overcome such financial difficulties,” he added while speaking to the Saudi Gazette. He advises government officials to tackle this problem by providing women with more job opportunities. Saudi Gazette also met with a number of the unemployed women Al-Asmari was referring to and they reiterated his views. “We are not disabled or dependent family members, but only require opportunities to join the work field,” remarked Kholood Marzouk, a 26-year-old psychology graduate from King Abdul Aziz University who has been unemployed for two years - ever since graduation, in fact. “Excluding women from a number of work fields also plays a very important role in making us dependent on someone else.” Another King Abdul Aziz University graduate, 28-year-old Ghada Abdulrahman, mirrors Kholood's words and adds that women are currently only ‘accepted' in two fields: education and medicine. “These two fields are not big enough to incorporate all female graduates, and this is what has caused our unemployment,” she explained. Another factor according to a number of social experts is that many families lead more extravagant lives than they can afford. “Saudi families used to lead much simpler lives, but due to globalization and the resultant materialism, many aspects of life have completely changed,” remarked Dr. Salem Bin Ali Al-Qahtani, a sociologist and member of the Shoura Council. He added that most families are attempting to ‘appear rich' with regard to their lifestyle, especially on occasions like marriage, birth, graduation, travel and holidays like Eid. Indeed, statistics released by the MasterCard credit card company shows that families in the Kingdom lead in the percentage of salary spent on unnecessary consumer goods (20 to 30 per cent) within the Middle East. This ‘showing off' phenomenon has deep roots in the Kingdom, as families traditionally compete with each other in terms of status symbols. “Most families have very close relations with their neighbors and relatives, so status symbols work as the medium in which one family could out-do the other,” explained Dr. Al-Qahtani. “If we take marriage as an example, we will discover that most families try to appear as rich as possible, with complete disregard for money,” he added. “Poor families will attempt to host the best possible celebrations, even if they need to take out a loan to finance it.” He advises all families to handle their finances more sensibly, and to define goals, needs and a strategy to cover those objectives. Most importantly, a family should collectively realize what is beneficial for them and what isn't. “I advise families to choose a lifestyle that fits their financial circumstances,” he said. He finds that blaming the government for not supplying more opportunities for women is not conducive to finding a solution as the government is already doing much in that field. He indicates the inclusion of women in a number of private and public workplaces as evidence of this.
