The Jordanian Paradox: An Institutional Analysis of the Gap between Women’s Capabilities and Economic Empowerment

Abstract

This study aims to provide a systematic institutional analysis of the persistent gap between the high educational attainment of Jordanian women and their low economic participation, a phenomenon known as the “Jordanian Paradox.” Drawing on an integrated theoretical framework that merges Naila Kabeer’s “Social Relations Approach” (SRA) (1994) and Amartya Sen’s “Capability Approach” (CA) (1999), the problem is deconstructed into two parallel tracks: wage employment and entrepreneurship. The paper investigates how intersecting institutional barriers across the public sector, market, and household constrain women’s capabilities and economic agency. Methodologically, the study utilizes a dual econometric analysis employing microdata: a Probit model on the Jordanian Labor Force Survey (LFS) to determine the drivers of wage employment participation, and a Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimator on the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) data. Findings, updated with Q3 2025 metrics, reveal a stark structural disparity where female unemployment among Jordanians has reached 33.9% despite a 98% literacy rate, and confirm that 59.1% of the unemployed possess higher education qualifications ( DoS, 2025a ). The analysis suggests that women’s economic participation rates are influenced by multi-dimensional institutional constraints. These results confirm that social norms and the unequal burden of care hinder participation in wage employment, while women entrepreneurs face structural constraints in finance and asset ownership. The study concludes that bridging this gap requires transformative policy reforms that directly target these constraints, moving beyond partial solutions toward empowerment that expands women’s set of valuable choices.