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GENDER, POLICY AND LABOUR: CONTEXT: When taking into account the developing labour market policies an important fact that must be considered. The old model of the sole breadwinner having someone at home taking care of his children and private life is not the norm any more in our countries. There has been a clear shift to dual breadwinner households. At the same time we witness a growing polarization between ‘work-rich’ and ‘work-poor’ households. Hence, policy has to respond equally to the needs of all workers in all employment situations. For many employers, more flexibility seems to be the answer to the demands for efficiency posed by globalization and technical change. But it may be necessary to protect workers against some of the imperatives associated with the drive for flexibility and offer them a degree of security. The instruments for doing this – by law or by negotiation between the social partners – will have to differ from country to country, and between different sectors in working life. The goal in all this should be to avoid ‘employment traps’ where people are marginalized into unemployment or under-employment, or ‘poverty traps’ where people become marginalized in low-wage jobs. The less educated, older workers and people with heavy family responsibilities are particularly at risk from these traps and special care must be taken to ensure that women are assisted to escape them. This specific concern leads to my second conclusion. The Balkan countries have a labour market that is too gender segregated to ensure the best use of the available human resources. This calls for continuing our efforts with policies designed to fight gender segregation in working life and its effects on women’s pay and career prospects. Policies that foster the better use of existing skills – women’s skills and competencies, the skills acquired by learning on-the-job – are of vital importance in today’s labour market. This puts a premium on developing and implementing effective strategies for lifelong learning involving families and schools, the transition from school to work, vocational education and training, active labour market policies and on-the-job training. But this is not enough. It has to be complemented by family-friendly policies in the workplace and effective commitments to guarantee greater job satisfaction for women and offer them better career prospects. This is often regarded as traditional policy for equality in working life. If so, it has not outlived its role. We have to fight the low evaluation of so-called women’s skills and tasks – social contact, empathy and caring. In real work situations, they are often the last to be taken into account when it comes to pay and career building. As we stand on the threshold of the 21st century, our efforts to create a working life without gender differences and discrimination do not depend only on labour market policies and policy for equality in employment. They also depend heavily on the infrastructure or the arrangements we have in society when it comes to taking care of our dependants – both our children and the elderly. Labour market policy will have to cope with a world where employees – men and women alike – have family responsibilities which they want to combine with their responsibilities in the labour market. So, what is the appropriate strategy in today’s labour market and society to achieve our goal of gender equality? Many speakers have stressed the need for ‘mainstreaming’ of gender issues, which is, placing them in all major policy areas. This is important, but it does not mean that we should relax our efforts in the traditional areas of policy for gender equality. OBJECTIVES: The objective of the Conference is to raise the awareness of policy makers to the neither fact that economic transition and economic development are nor gender-neutral processes. In fact, in order to foster sustainable growth it is essential to mainstream gender analysis into policy making. The Conference will strengthen information sharing among organizations, human right’s activists and policy makers and will contribute to analytical capacity building on the issue of gender mainstreaming. Policy makers need reliable information on baseline gender differentials and on the gender impact of policies and reforms, in order to inform their deliberations and deliver better outcomes. At present many countries lack adequate information and the capacity to evaluate it. It is also important to build local capacity in the economics of gender and gender mainstreaming. The Conference will promote equal opportunities for men and women on the labour market through gender mainstreaming and the extension of special measures for the promotion of women's employment.
Supported by: East-East Partnership Beyond Borders Programme of OSI Network
Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Skopje
Embassy of The Federal Republic of Germany in Skopje
Local partner
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