774,123. That is the number of businesses owned by women in Saudi Arabia, 43.8% of all enterprises in the Kingdom, according to figures for 2025 shared by Dr Sanaa Al-Otaibi, Director of the National Observatory for Women, and reported by the Saudi Press Agency. She called the year a significant milestone for women's empowerment under Vision 2030.<\/p>\n
In the job market, the female labour force participation rate rose to 34.2%, while the economic participation rate for Saudi women reached 36.3%. Women also make up 44% of middle and senior management positions, the Okaz newspaper reported, citing the observatory, which analyses such data to support policy-making and tracks progress through a Women's Participation in Development index built on five pillars: economic, educational, health, organisational and social.<\/p>\n
The gains reach beyond the economy. Saudi women obtained a significant number of international patents in 2024 and 2025, the Kingdom kept an advanced ranking in the World Bank's Women, Business and the Law 2026 report and made progress on the Gender Gap Index, and Saudi women won international awards in innovation, scientific research and sustainability.<\/p>\n
Al-Otaibi pointed to flexible and remote work policies as part of the story, along with national programmes such as Tamheer, Wusool and Qurrah and initiatives that opened renewable energy, rural development, industry and mining to more women. Looking ahead, she expects women's roles to grow in the green, purple and digital economies and in advanced fields such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology.<\/p>\n
Tourism offers one clear example: Saudi women now account for around 47% of Saudi employees in core tourism activities, up from 5% at the end of 2018, according to the Ministry of Tourism's annual statistical report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
774,123. That is the number of businesses owned by women in Saudi Arabia, 43.8% of all enterprises in the Kingdom, according to figures for 2025 shared by Dr Sanaa Al-Otaibi, Director of the National Observatory for Women, and reported by the Saudi Press Agency. She called the year a significant milestone for women's empowerment under Vision 2030. In the job market, the female labour force participation rate rose to 34.2%, while the economic participation rate for Saudi women reached 36.3%. Women also make up 44% of middle and senior management positions, the Okaz newspaper reported, citing the observatory, which analyses<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60953,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10480],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-saudi-women"],"yoast_head":"\n