Women’s economic opportunities in the region of Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia need serious improvement. Women’s participation in the labour market in this region may be the highest in the world, but, in all countries in the region, women’s economic activity rate is lower than that of men’s. A disproportionate number of women work part-time or have temporary, insecure or informal jobs, making them more vulnerable to poverty and external shocks, such as the recent economic crisis. The latest data shows that women earn less than men in all countries in the region. In some countries, such as, Armenia Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation, women on average earn approximately 50 to 60 percent of men’s average wages.
With the transition and conflict recovery processes in the region it came the resurgence of patriarchal attitudes, subordinating women, and of strong stereotypes regarding their roles and responsibilities in the family and society. The withdrawal of women from public life including in education, politics and economic sectors has characterized the transition processes in several countries in the region. Even though the region’s track record in girls’ education is relatively good, 13 countries in the region fail to reach the global average of 19 per cent representation in national parliaments. What happens to those well-educated girls in our region? Their potential contribution to social, political and economic development could have so improved their countries’ growth. As a result of the recent financial crisis, women and girls are now ‘forced’ out of their homes to find means to earn income. With little skills and experience, what opportunities can they find? Wouldn’t it have been better if the households always had more than one steady, main income sources? Many households in the region also hugely depend on remittances from their family members. And the challenges faced by those women who head their households are context-specific, too.
Women’s economic security is not only an issue of women’s human right but also a prerequisite for sustainable development. This is why UNDP in the region (http://europeandcis.undp.org/gender) is assessing the gap between de facto equality and de jure equality, and addressing women’s economic security from a wide range of perspectives – policy perspectives, capacity perspectives and social institutions perspectives – with its eyes firmly set on the ultimate goal of gender equality.