In recent years, Algerian women have broken men’s monopoly in engineering studies, a new international report says, but their reasons for challenging male domination in the sector are varied.
The proportion of female engineers in Algeria jumped from 35 percent in 2005 to 47.1 percent in 2017.
Algeria topped the list of female engineering graduates in the Arab countries that year, with 48.5 percent. Egypt was second highest, with 45.5 percent, followed by Tunisia (44.2 percent), Syria (43.9 percent), Oman (43.2 percent) and Morocco (42.2 percent), according to an excerpt from the forthcoming Unesco Science Report. The full report will be issued in April under the title “The Race Against Time for Smarter Development.”
A Leader in Women’s Education
“Given that the work environment consists mostly of male workers, it was not easy for women to work in this sector,” Karima Belsaihi, a professor of social sciences at the University of Constantine, said. “However, Algerian women have succeeded in that.”
Algeria is an Arab leader in terms of the percentage of women enrolled in universities overall. More than 60 percent of all students in the country are females, according to a recent study titled “The Empowerment of Arab Women” issued by the Arab Monetary Fund. (See a related article, “Behind the Numbers: Arab Women in Research.”)