[women-rights] UNIFEM releases new report on women's status in labour market in Eastern Europe

UNIFEM Press release
13 June 2006

Paris and New York — A study launched in Paris this week by the United
Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), with the United Nations
Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) examines women's labour market
situation in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the
Western Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in the context of the
social and economic transformations in the region in the past 15 years.

Using statistical data from the UNECE Gender Statistics Database, 'The
Story Behind the Numbers: Women and Employment in Central and Eastern
Europe and the Western Commonwealth of Independent States' analyses trends
in women's and men's labour force participation during the transition to a
market oriented economy in 18 countries in Eastern Europe and assesses
their implications for the economic security of both women and men.

By framing the analysis within the social, political and economic context
of this transition, the study highlights several questions to which the
available statistics cannot by themselves provide answers, including
changes in the status and wage levels of public sector vs. private sector
jobs, the increase in different forms of informal employment and the
distribution of women and men across them. This 'story behind the numbers'
illustrates the various ways in which women's economic security has
declined following the collapse of state socialism, and points to the data
needed to fully measure the changing labour market position of women and
men.

Osnat Lubrani, UNIFEM's regional programme director for Central and
Eastern Europe, called the UNECE database an essential foundation for the
analysis in the study, noting that "efforts to strengthen it are critical
to improve the availability and comparability of statistics to measure the
economic status of women." "Limited measures of gender inequality
presented outside the broader socio-economic context, could lead to
inaccurate conclusions about the real situation women are facing," she
said, "masking economic hardship, discrimination and declining living
standards for many."

While existing statistics indicate that the transition has not resulted in
a large-scale increase in gender inequality, since men's position also
decreased and living standards and work conditions for most people
'leveled down', the 'story behind the numbers' points to some trends that
indicate the likelihood of a longer-term deterioration in women's
situation relative to that of men. For example, women now comprise a
larger share of public sector employees than they did in the early years
of the transition while the vast majority of male employees, particularly
in European Union (EU) member states, currently work in the private
sphere. Importantly, the consequences of working in the public sphere,
where jobs are generally of low status and underpaid, have become more
onerous in light of the withdrawal of state subsidies to child care and
other services since the beginning of transition. In addition, although
women across the region are on average better educated than men, they are
paid significantly less no matter what sector or occupation they work in.

The rate of participation of younger women relative to younger men has
fallen sharply, while the opposite trend is observed among older age
groups. Younger women's low activity rates can be attributed to their high
level of school enrolment, their difficulty in finding jobs, and their
tendency to drop out of work to raise children. Parental leave,
predominantly taken by women, in many countries is contributing to
employers' reluctance to hire and invest in training younger women, while
women themselves may find it difficult to reintegrate into the workforce
and may lose job skills during their absence. State policies no longer try
to assist women to balance work and family. Instead, they have reinforced
the tradition of women's sole responsibility for reproductive work and
have cut (or allowed the devaluation of) state subsidies for child-care
institutions, maternity leave and parental sick leave.

The study concludes with specific recommendations for improving the
available data, including those related to the development of the national
statistical systems of countries in the region and their harmonization
with international and EU frameworks, as well as new data and analysis
designed to understand and highlight gender differences. Among these, data
on informal work, on the links between employment and family life, on the
intersection of gender and other sources of disadvantage, and on migration
and trafficking are particularly important.

The study also suggests specific policy measures that need to be taken to
improve the disadvantaged position of women in the labour market. Three
are highlighted - improving women's access to decent paid work; allowing
women and men to better balance work and family life through the use of
various tax-benefit schemes, and adopting transparent job evaluation and
wage setting mechanisms that help create standards for equal pay for
comparable work.


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'The Story Behind the Numbers: Women and Employment in Central and Eastern
Europe and the Western Commonwealth of Independent States' is available on
the UNIFEM website:
http://www.unifem.org/resources/item_detail.php?ProductID=66

Media Inquiries:
(1) Leigh Pasqual, Media Specialist, UNIFEM Headquarters, +1 212-906-5463 
(2) Asya Varbanova, Project Coordinator, Central and Eastern Europe
Regional Office, +421 259 337328