Muscat – Omani women are making gains in employment, higher education and property ownership, with the number of employed women rising 9% to 270,696 in 2025, according to figures released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI) to mark Omani Women’s Day.

Women accounted for about 30% of all employed Omanis aged 15 and older, while their economic participation rate increased to 32.9% from 32.4% in 2024. Working women made up around 85% of economically active Omani women.

The data also showed that 31,808 Omani women were newly appointed during 2025. About 25% of working Omani women were employed in specialist professions across scientific, technical and humanitarian fields.

Education was another area of progress. A total of 79,250 Omani women enrolled in higher education in the 2024/2025 academic year, up around 5% from the previous year. The number of women holding postgraduate qualifications increased 11%.

Meanwhile, 248,855 Omani women aged ten and older were enrolled in school during the 2025/2026 academic year. However, 4.8% of Omani women aged ten and older had no educational qualifications in 2025.

Women also recorded modest gains in asset ownership. The number of Omani women owning one or more plots of land rose 2%, while ownership of residential units increased 3% and vehicle ownership grew 4% year on year.

Omani women numbered 1.51mn in 2025, accounting for 71% of the sultanate’s 2.12mn female population. Women aged 18 to 29 represented around 18% of the total Omani female population. Projections indicate that the number of Omani women will reach nearly 2mn by 2040.

Health indicators showed that 99.9% of births took place under specialised medical supervision. The maternal mortality rate fell from 14.5 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2024 to 11.3 in 2025.

A total of 743,023 women benefited from social protection programmes in 2025, representing around half of all beneficiaries. These included 616,446 recipients of child benefits, 95,576 elderly beneficiaries and 20,239 recipients of disability benefits.