Transition economy restructuring. Its effect on women

Political and Social reforms have brought fundamental changes to the labour markets of transition countries. Transition crises and the need to adjust to new market conditions and increased labour productivity have led to large employment losses, translated partly into high open unemployment and partly into withdrawals from the labour market, often enforced by lack of jobs. And women have suffered the most because of these changes. The impact of employment losses, high unemployment and structural changes experienced by these countries has been unevenly distributed by gender, with women having been especially hard-hit.

The composition of employment by sector has also changed dramatically. The most serious losses being experienced in the industrial sector. Industrial branches with high value added were hardest hit by economic recession. By contrast, others have suffered fewer losses and in many countries their share of production and employment has increased.

The contribution of agriculture to employment has rapidly declined in countries where the rural population can find major sources of income outside of agriculture. In other countries, agriculture has become a buffer for unemployment through an increase in subsistence farming, and the share of agriculture in total employment has increased.

The service sector has grown steeply in most transition countries, since most new jobs have been created in that sector, particularly in financial and producer services, in public administration, and in trade, tourism and other consumer services. Conversely, a few countries have not experienced substantial employment gains in services, apart from state administration and the financial sector. However, such figures relate only to formal employment, while many services arecarried out in the informal sector.

Labour market tensions in the transition economies have often been solved to the detriment of women. They have faced discrimination in layoff and recruitment and, more often than men, have solved their uncomfortable situations by leaving the labour market. As a result, employment participation rates of women have declined more than those of men in most transition countries. Nevertheless, economic participation of women in transition countries has still remained among the highest in the world and, moreover, more than 90% of the employed women are working full-time. However, comparison of unemployment rates by gender does not provide uniform evidence that unemployment has hit women more frequently than men, but rather that women's unemployment is dependent on country-specific factors such as economic structure, social protection system, attitudes of employers towards women workers and the quality of statistical data.

The share of women in total employment has declined in most transition countries. In countries with relatively higher shares of traditionally female-dominated industries which have recovered from economic crisis, women have been doing quite well. In the services sector women still dominate; however, their share has declined in most countries as a result of new development trends within the sector, resulting in significant changes in job segregation by gender. On the one hand, rapidly expanding services offering high-skilled and dynamic job opportunities now tend to engage more men, so the share of women has declined there. Industries offering good opportunities for small business, such as trade, hotels and restaurants, and certain household services have also recently attracted more men than before. By contrast, social services like education, culture and health care, highly feminized already in the past and mostly funded by public budgets, have even higher shares of women workers.

The common denominator of all these gender-related structural changes is wage differentials. Men tend to leave jobs for better paid ones, many of which have newly emerged in sectors traditionally dominated by women. Such jobs are usually either managerial posts and senior public administration positions, where salaries have accelerated relative to other jobs, or own account/employer jobs. In contrast, jobs in social services, which are secure, often requiring high skills, but funded from squeezed public budgets and therefore having low wages, are mostly, and increasingly, occupied by women. The share of women in managerial posts, which in the past was much lower compared with men but gradually increasing, has again fallen in most transition economies. Women are also represented far less among private employers; usually less than one-third. Conversely, the concentration of women in general services has increased further. This changing sectoral and occupational job segregation by gender is attributed to persistent prejudices against women, claiming that they are unable or unwilling to supervise larger teams of workers or manage production units successfully. Employers also often discriminate against women in recruitment and upgrading, for child care reasons (parental leaves, extended to 2-4 years in most countries, are still taken almost exclusively by women) and in some countries managers even push women to take extended leave in order to reduce surplus labour. The ILO enterprise surveys also reveal more limited access of women workers to training in skills upgrading. Therefore, the career advancement of women has further slowed during transition. This new occupational segregation and increasing wage differentials have further widened the gap between male and female salaries in many transition countries.

Efforts to reduce the negative impact of structural changes on women, as well as the disadvantages and discrimination they face in these changing labour markets, should focus on several areas.

Recommendations

Women should be better represented politically, by strengthening the women's movement both inside and outside political parties
Anti-discriminatory legislation along with effective institutions and instruments to enforce them in practice
Women should be encouraged to opt for education for professions outside those traditionally considered as "suitable" for them
Women need competitive skills, so they must be given access to guidance to quality education and training for professions demanded by the labour market, and should be encouraged to undergo retraining when necessary.
Employers should be stimulated to be more positively oriented towards the career advancement of women, and encouraged to promote more women to managerial positions, with the help of employers' organizations to convince them of the advantages of gender-sensitive personnel policy.
Women should be encouraged to start their own businesses and be given access to effective support services and special credit lines.
Women need more access to active labour market policies improving their employability and assisting them in job placement, including subsidized employment if necessary, and to the availability of flexible work arrangements for women with family responsibilities.
There is a need for a newly designed system of child care, facilitating the employment of women.

Gender! A Partnership of Equals
Geneve: International Labour Office, 2000. 115 p.

Transition economy restructuring
Its effect on women

Gender! A Partnership of Equals Geneve: International Labour Office, 2000. 115 p.

Transition economy restructuring Its effect on women

Gender! A Partnership of Equals
Geneve: International Labour Office, 2000. 115 p.

Transition economy restructuring
Its effect on women