Facts: Women in work in Saudi Arabia

THE STATE OF SAUDI WOMEN AT WORK

• Since 1992, women workers have increased threefold in Saudi Arabia from 5.4% to 14.4% but that is still the lowest level in the Gulf.

• Unemployment in Saudi Arabia stands at 36%; among Saudi women who want to work, it is 34% - that’s almost five times as great as the 7% unemployment rate for men.

• Of Saudis receiving unemployment benefits, 86% are women.

• Around 57% of Saudi women have university degrees.

• Some 78% of female university graduates are unemployed.

• Roughly 60% of women with PhD degrees (over 1,000) are not working.

• More than two-thirds of the Saudi population is under 30 and around 300,000 Saudis enter the labour force each year.

• About 145,000 Saudis, including 40,000 women, are studying on scholarships abroad in more than 30 countries – almost half in the US.

• Last year the government's efforts resulted in more than 335,000 new private sector jobs for Saudis.

• Around 300,000 firms in Saudi Arabia reportedly do not employ any locals.

• Saudi women account for only 15% of citizens employed by private companies.

• In 30 years the Saudi private sector hired 70,000 women. In the last two years, 160,000 have been hired.

TIMELINE OF REFORM FOR SAUDI WOMEN

April 2013: Saudi billionaire Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal tweets in favour of women driving, saying it will save half a million jobs held by foreign drivers.

April 2013: Saudi women are allowed to ride buggies and bikes in public. Under the new rules, women can use parks, esplanades and open desert areas.

April 2013: The first female lawyer, Arwa Al Hujaili, is registered as a trainee advocate. The government has also announced plans to lift a ban on female lawyers arguing cases in a courtroom. They are currently allowed to represent clients and offer legal advice, but not in court.

March 2013: Cabinet ministers issued a new law making national identification cards mandatory for all women within seven years, granting them identities independent from their families.

March 2013: Women’s sports clubs are to be licensed, Reuters reports.

February 2013: The first women attend the Shura Council – and sit in the same room as the men. Originally it was planned they would be in a separate room, with a video feed.

January 2013: King Abdullah announces that 30 women will sit on the 150-strong Shura Council, which advises the government on legislation.

January 2013: The Labour Ministry signs an agreement with the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice aimed at “expanding job opportunities for women”, allowing only Saudi women to work in women’s sections of shopping centres as long as there is a 1.6m-high separation wall in shops employing both men and women.

October 2012: The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the religious police) announces it is to form an all-women unit, which will operate in women-only zones.

September 2012: Wadjda, a film about a willful Riyadh girl by Saudi’s first female director, Haifaa Al Mansour, plays at Venice Film Festival.

August 2012: A women-only industrial city, dedicated to female workers, is to be constructed in the Eastern Province city of Hofuf, Saudi Industrial Property Authority (Modon) announces.

July 2012: Two Saudi Arabian women compete in the Olympics for the first time - Wodjan Shaherkani, 16, in judo and Sarah Attar, a 19-year-old Californian with a Saudi father and dual citizenship, in the 800 metres. (Qatar and Brunei also sent women to the London Olympics for the first time.)

July 2012: The decree for lingerie shops is extended to cosmetics, jewellery, abaya and perfume shops. Labour minister Adel Faqih issues an order allowing women to work as cashiers in supermarkets too.

January 2012: The Ministry of Labour enforces a royal decree issued in summer 2011, ordering that sales personnel in shops selling lingerie must be female, creating job opportunities for more than 40,000 Saudi women. Previously most staff were Asian men.

January 2012:  Women will be able to attend football matches by 2014, it is announced, when a purpose-built stadium will be completed in Jeddah with family cabins and balconies.

September 2011: In a historic move, King Abdullah gives women the right to vote and run in the 2015 municipal elections, the country’s only public polls.

September 2009: The first co-educational university, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), opens. Run by state oil company Aramco, it is based in Thuwal, north of Jeddah

February 2009: King Abdullah appoints the country's first woman minister. Nora Al Fayez, a US-educated former teacher, as deputy education minister in charge of a new department for female students.