With steep new taxes and cuts to government subsidies, many families are increasingly relying on women to work.
Al-Ahmed, a high school graduate, is the first woman in her family to have a job. Her parents had never wanted her to work but they eventually relented as life in the capital became too expensive.
Showing up to work across the country every day are thousands of women like Al-Ahmed – unimaginable just a few years ago but now increasingly the norm under reforms led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to modernise the kingdom. As part of the reforms, women have been allowed to drive since 2018. But Al-Ahmed, who earns 4,500 riyals a month, cannot afford driving lessons, let alone a car.
This is particularly true in retail and hospitality, sectors in which the government launched a scheme in 2011 to replace cheaper foreign workers with citizens to tackle Saudi unemployment, currently at 11%. She turned to baking, eventually opening three stores that employ 45 people. At a recent date festival, she promoted her Rose Ribbon Bakery, one of few women-owned businesses in Qassim.
Happily eating one of her cupcakes, a man in his 60s complained about the fast pace of social change.
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