9 • LIVING CONDITIONS
Before 1979, few houses had piped water. Most houses still simply have home storage tanks and rely on water deliveries by truck. Due to a severe water shortage, rationing is in effect.
About 70 percent of Jordanians live in urban areas, most of them in the capital city of Amman (considered one of the cleanest and most efficient cities of the Arab world). Jordan is among the top ten countries of the world in reducing infant mortality, and life expectancies are fairly high: sixty-seven years for men and seventy-one for women.
Because of the difficulty in finding employment in Jordan, particularly for skilled workers, many Jordanians go abroad in search of work. The majority go to the Persian Gulf oil states (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates), whose small populations require them to import laborers from neighboring states. Working in the Gulf allows Jordanians to earn steady incomes, a percentage of which they send to family members in Jordan, thus helping the Jordanian economy.
10 • FAMILY LIFE
Traditional values are very important to Jordanians. Marriages usually result from family introductions, if not outright matches. Couples are almost never forced to marry against their will, however. Upper-middle-class couples court each other in the Western style.
One out of five marriages ends in divorce, and divorced women rarely remarry because of the stigma attached to them by society. A married woman's primary role is to produce children, preferably sons. A woman with many sons is considered more powerful than a woman with only daughters. The average Jordanian family has seven children, giving Jordan one of the highest birth rates in the world.
Women are guaranteed equal rights in the Jordanian constitution. Religious laws and social custom often undermine this. However, there are a few women in the Jordanian Parliament, suggesting their improved status.
Homes are built so that floors can be added when sons marry. Sons bring their brides home and they raise their family there. Most Jordanians live in three- or fourstory homes containing extended families who eat together. Daughters-in-law are expected to do most of the cooking. Men never cook or do housework.