Some time ago, in an interview with Arab News, one of the country's leading businessmen (who shall remain anonymous so as not to embarrass him) calmly declared that over half the Kingdom's labor force were women. This was his response to my question as whether businesses should employ more women. I challenged his assertion but he was adamant. This could not be allowed to pass. When pressed, he then said that what he meant was that over half of government employees were women. Challenged again, it became over half of Saudi teachers were women. Finally it was that over half of primary schoolteachers were women. Not exactly the same as half the labor force. But he did not appear to see the contradiction.

That became evident some months later, when on a flight from Riyadh to Jeddah, I got talking to the man sitting next to me, a trade official from Pakistan. "Tell me," he asked after a while, "is it really true that over half the people working in this country are women?" Who, I asked, told him that. Of course it was the same prominent businessman.

Whether the man in question (and it would be a man) genuinely believed this or just wanted everyone else to believe it, I never discovered. He is probably still spinning the same yarn to anyone who will listen. This was his take on women in work. As far as he was concerned it was not an issue. The situation was perfect as it was; businesses like his did not need to do anything.

The thinking that there is no need for women to advance, that everything is fine as it is, is not uncommon, but it is on the retreat. Things are changing. Women are increasingly looking to play a more active role in Saudi society - and employment is a major element of that. In fact, it is the major element.

There are three prime reasons for the change: Education, necessity and government encouragement.

Education has been the main motor for change. More and more young Saudi women go to college and university. It is estimated that more than half the Kingdom's graduates are women. They have learned to think for themselves and they want to be creative, contribute to society and earn a living. They are not prepared, once they have a qualification, to then forget everything they have learned, get married and play the retiring housewife. They have ambitions, for themselves as well as for their families.

Necessity plays an equally powerful role. Families need more than one income. Saudi Arabia has one of the highest wage dependency rates in the world (that is the number of people dependent on a single earner). In most industrialized countries such dependents are usually the young and the old. In more traditional societies, there is the wife as well. In Saudi Arabia, however, it also often includes extended families - and not just offspring, who should have a job but for various reasons do not, but grandchildren and even nephews and cousins as well, similarly unemployed. If there is just one single earner in an extended family, the financial burden can be immense.

In fact, as in many other societies, the extended Saudi family all living under one roof, is in retreat. The nuclear family is becoming the norm. Such families need two salaries if they are to live comfortably. Saudi women are looking for jobs not because they want something to pass the time; they and their families need the money.

Reform, initiated from the top down, is the other driving factor. The government, in particular Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah who has been at the forefront of changes, is committed to empowering women. It makes economic sense. You cannot have a modern dynamic society of the sort that Saudi Arabia aspires to become which ignores 50 percent of the population.

In other Gulf States, women are making a name for themselves - in business, in industry, in politics. Four women have been elected to Kuwait's Parliament, the first women MPs in its history. Bahrain's first woman MP was elected in 2006 (previously there had been women MPs but they were appointed by the king). In both places too, women have been appointed as ministers of health, although both resigned as a result of what was widely seen as targeting by disgruntled conservatives.

The Saudi authorities know that the Kingdom cannot stand against the flow. It is an integral part of the GCC and if Saudi women feel blocked at home, they can pack their bags and head for Bahrain or Dubai, taking their expertise and not inconsiderable wealth with them. Some have done precisely that. These departures have been the Kingdom's loss.

But there is no intention to stand against the flow. Women are being encouraged to take on responsibilities. A new, 40,000-capacity all-women university, which when it opens will be the biggest in the world, is being built in Riyadh. It will create more potential women doctors, women lawyers, women businessmen, women bankers - and yes, women whose ambition is to be ambassadors and government ministers. The government knows that - and approves. The ball is already rolling. In the government reshuffle in February, the king appointed the country's first woman deputy minister: Norah Al-Fayez (education). Exactly a week earlier, Saudi Arabia's first woman diplomat was appointed: Dr. Fatimah Abdullah Al-Saleem, now cultural attache at the Saudi Embassy in Ottawa. There was no coincidence about the timing of the two appointments. Giving women top jobs is now firmly part of the government agenda. There will be more.

There are Saudi women in business, in hospitals and clinics - as doctors, nurses, health workers and lab technicians - in schools, in bureaucracy. There are some remarkable stories about barrier breaking - stories of women who have made it against all odds, stories of women whose determination to succeed should be an inspiration to others.

Given the government's support, it is tempting to think that women are pushing at an open door. It is not so. Most of the women who have succeeded have done so because they come from educated and relatively wealthy families who have backed them; they themselves have been well educated, often abroad, and as a result are more confident and more assertive. The fact is that there is still a mountain to climb. Despite the government support, there are many Saudi males, both in the public and private sectors, like the prominent businessmen interviewed some years ago, who deliberately ignore the role of women outside the home. Even government departments do so. One major complaint among businesswomen is that many officials ignore the 2004 change in the law on women entrepreneurs and continue to insist that even women-only businesses appoint a male manager.

Saudi business talks a lot about social empowerment and the importance of bringing women into the workplace and decision making. It is very much one of the subjects of the day at present. But it is a case of much talk and little action. Arab News is probably a leader when it comes to the men/women ratios: about 25 percent of staff are female. In the banking sector, on the other hand, although it is estimated that Saudi women own at least 40 percent of accounts, worth up to SR60 billion, that 20 percent of project finance in the Kingdom comes from women investors and that women account for up to 60 percent of new stock investors and 40 percent of new real-estate investors, the number of women working for banks is minimal. Back in 2004, it was estimated that just 6 percent of the 24,590 people employed were women; a mere 1,518 employees. Today that number has doubled, to around 3,000, but it is also reported that the total number of employees has more than doubled. It is put at 60,000, which means that the percentage of women employees at banks has actually fallen, to 5 percent.

Nonetheless, the trend for change will continue. Empowerment of women is being implemented, and where the government leads, business will follow. Women can and do, for example, fly planes (which says a great deal about the question of driving). But to put the whole issue in perspective, the reality remains that the overwhelming majority of working women in the country are foreigners. There are, for example, some Saudi businessmen who have women assistants, but not many. There are some Saudi women lawyers, again not many.

The only way the pace it is really going to speed up is if women come forward themselves and take on the responsibilities that are to be had.

In the process, what they must do is ensure that they are not used as cheap alternatives to men. But that is another battle that has to be fought. - Arab News.

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