This document provides a literature review on analyzing gender gaps. It discusses how gender gaps can be examined across different dimensions like labor participation, economic opportunity, political empowerment, education, and health. It outlines factors that can explain gender gaps like social norms, cultural environments, and psychological differences between males and females. The document also discusses how reducing gender inequality can promote sustainable development and economic growth. Finally, it reviews several approaches used to measure gender gaps developed by organizations like the UNDP, OECD, World Bank, and World Economic Forum.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the sources, economic and social characteristics, of growth recovery, which followed the first period of output decline in two transition countries – Poland and Russia. They represent two different groups of transition countries (new EU member states vs. CIS) in terms of adopted transition strategy and accomplished results. Generally, fast reformers succeeded and slow reformers experienced a lot of troubles. Although eventually all former communist countries entered the path of economic growth, those which moved slowly lost sometimes the whole decade. Social costs of slow reforms were also dramatic: income degradation and rising inequalities, high level of poverty and corruption, various social and institutional distortions and pathologies, violation of human rights and civil and economic liberties, attempts of authoritarian restoration, etc.
Authored by: Marek Dabrowski, Oleksandr Rohozynsky, Irina Sinitsina
Published in 2004
This work is done as contribution to the Regional Human Development Report 2004 section 3.7 on “Labor Markets”. The paper focuses on discussing peculiarities of the labor market transition in CIS countries, features of unemployment, labor legislation, and role of the trade unions.
The paper gathers information on the labor markets of CIS and Eastern European countries that was available by summer 2004, and draws policy recommendations based on comparison between these two groups of countries. The main conclusion is that the transformation of labor markets is not complete in any of the CIS countries; most of the problems that prevailed in the early 1990s remain. These include: centralized wage setting in five CIS countries – Belarus, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan; extensive unemployment and underemployment, much of which is hidden; ineffective systems of labor relations and social protection; large mismatches between the labor market skills supplied and the skills demanded by new market economies; inadequate official labor market data.
Fortunately, the strong economic growth experienced by most CIS countries since 1999 has increased the demand for labor and is putting downward pressures on unemployment rates. This offers a window of opportunity for policy makers seeking to further transform labor markets, and to modernize labor relations and social protection systems. The above analysis suggests the policy recommendations to speed up further transformation.
Authored by: Olga Pavlova, Oleksandr Rohozynsky
Published in 2005
In the 1990s, the CIS region experienced a painful transformation following the collapse of the USSR and the command economy. For the less developed republics of the former USSR, this process was even more dramatic as they lost subsidies from the Union's budget and some of them suffered devastating conflicts.
In the 2000s, after overcoming the adaptation output decline and the consequences of the 1998-1999 financial crises, these economies started to grow rapidly, reducing poverty and macroeconomic imbalances. However, their future growth prospects are increasingly vulnerable due to their strong dependence on commodity exports, a poor business and investment climate, endemic corruption and weak governance. Quite recently, fighting high inflation has returned to the policy agenda.
The modernization and diversification of the low-income CIS economies requires further market and institutional reforms aimed at overcoming the Soviet legacy of a repressive and inefficient state. The international community can help by resolving regional conflicts, assisting with trade and economic integration, and offering well-targeted development assistance.
Authored by: Marek Dąbrowski
Published in 2008
This paper provides the results of analyses of key problems related to pension systems and their reforms in Russia and Ukraine. The pension systems and their reforms in both countries are compared. They are also compared with the general picture observed in the OECD or selected countries belonging to that area. The analysis focuses on long-term trends rather than short-term shocks. The recent economic crisis is not covered since the analysis was mostly completed by 2008.
Authored by: Marek Gora, Oleksandr Rohozynsky, Oksana Sinyavskaya
Published in 2010
This paper employs a standard Tobin-Markowitz framework to analyse the determinants of capital flows into the CIS countries. Using data from 1996-2006, we find that the Russian financial crisis of 1998 has had a profound impact on capital flows into the CIS (both directly and indirectly). Firstly, it introduced a structural shift in the investors' behaviour by shifting the focus from the external factors to the internal ones, e.g. domestic interest and GDP growth rates. Secondly, it also drastically changed the impact of a number of explanatory variables on capital flows into the CIS. Political risk was found to be the second most important determinant of capital flows into the CIS. Additionally, we report some strong evidence of co-movement between portfolio flows into the CIS and CEEC, coupled with strong complementarity between global stock market activity and portfolio inflows into the CIS. Interestingly, external factors tend to be of a higher significance than internal factors for the largest members (Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan) of the CIS; whereas domestic variables tend to have a greater impact on the capital flows into the smaller CIS countries.
Authored by: Oleksandr Lozovyi
Published in 2007
The objective of this paper has been to experiment diverse economic indicators in order to help equip Ukrainian policymakers with a relatively simple tool, which could deliver warning signals about the possibility of upcoming economic problems and thereby assist the Government in designing policy instruments which would help prevent or soften a slowdown or recession.
Authored by: Vladimir Dubrovskiy, Inna Golodniuk, Janusz Szyrmer
This paper addresses the issue of the gender pay gap in the formal and informal labour markets in Poland. The authors verify the hypothesis of the existence of a gender pay gap in informal work and compare this gap with the one observed in the formal (registered) labour market.
Various analyses of available data show that size and characteristics of gender pay gap differ depending on the level of earnings. The inequality of earnings among unregistered women and men is more pronounced at the bottom tail of the earnings distribution. In the case of formal employees, inequality at the top of the distribution tends to be larger, confirming the existence of a ‘glass ceiling’.
The decomposition of the gender pay gap for selected quintiles indicates that it would be even higher if women had men’s characteristics.
A possible explanation of the results is the lack of minimum wage regulations in the informal market and the greater flexibility in agreement on wages in the higher quantiles.
Authored by: Magdalena Rokicka and Anna Ruzik-Sierdzinska
Published in 2010
Ukraine belongs to the group of countries which are known for the widespread phenomenon of subsistence and semi-subsistence farming. Individual farmers are not obliged to produce financial reports and their incomes belong to the category of unobservable incomes. When checking the eligibility for social assistance the level of their incomes needs to be estimated. In a country, where poverty rate is quite high, the coverage of the poor with financial aid is relatively low and public finances under constant control, the importance of a fair and justified methodology for income imputation is particularly strong. In this situation, an outdated and unfair current system of agriculture income estimation in Ukraine calls for immediate changes. This paper presents recommendations for the Ukrainian government in the area of agriculture income imputation, where several methods of estimating farm income were proposed (including the one based on Household Budget Survey). The recommendations were preceded with the analysis of five countries' practices in this area: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, and Poland. A review of different means testing methods, including direct means testing and proxy means testing, served as an introduction to the topic.
Authored by: Dmytro Boyarchuk, Liudmyla Kotusenko, Katarzyna Pietka-Kosinska, Roman Semko, Irina Sinitsina
Published in 2009
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the sources, economic and social characteristics, of growth recovery, which followed the first period of output decline in two transition countries – Poland and Russia. They represent two different groups of transition countries (new EU member states vs. CIS) in terms of adopted transition strategy and accomplished results. Generally, fast reformers succeeded and slow reformers experienced a lot of troubles. Although eventually all former communist countries entered the path of economic growth, those which moved slowly lost sometimes the whole decade. Social costs of slow reforms were also dramatic: income degradation and rising inequalities, high level of poverty and corruption, various social and institutional distortions and pathologies, violation of human rights and civil and economic liberties, attempts of authoritarian restoration, etc.
Authored by: Marek Dabrowski, Oleksandr Rohozynsky, Irina Sinitsina
Published in 2004
This work is done as contribution to the Regional Human Development Report 2004 section 3.7 on “Labor Markets”. The paper focuses on discussing peculiarities of the labor market transition in CIS countries, features of unemployment, labor legislation, and role of the trade unions.
The paper gathers information on the labor markets of CIS and Eastern European countries that was available by summer 2004, and draws policy recommendations based on comparison between these two groups of countries. The main conclusion is that the transformation of labor markets is not complete in any of the CIS countries; most of the problems that prevailed in the early 1990s remain. These include: centralized wage setting in five CIS countries – Belarus, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan; extensive unemployment and underemployment, much of which is hidden; ineffective systems of labor relations and social protection; large mismatches between the labor market skills supplied and the skills demanded by new market economies; inadequate official labor market data.
Fortunately, the strong economic growth experienced by most CIS countries since 1999 has increased the demand for labor and is putting downward pressures on unemployment rates. This offers a window of opportunity for policy makers seeking to further transform labor markets, and to modernize labor relations and social protection systems. The above analysis suggests the policy recommendations to speed up further transformation.
Authored by: Olga Pavlova, Oleksandr Rohozynsky
Published in 2005
In the 1990s, the CIS region experienced a painful transformation following the collapse of the USSR and the command economy. For the less developed republics of the former USSR, this process was even more dramatic as they lost subsidies from the Union's budget and some of them suffered devastating conflicts.
In the 2000s, after overcoming the adaptation output decline and the consequences of the 1998-1999 financial crises, these economies started to grow rapidly, reducing poverty and macroeconomic imbalances. However, their future growth prospects are increasingly vulnerable due to their strong dependence on commodity exports, a poor business and investment climate, endemic corruption and weak governance. Quite recently, fighting high inflation has returned to the policy agenda.
The modernization and diversification of the low-income CIS economies requires further market and institutional reforms aimed at overcoming the Soviet legacy of a repressive and inefficient state. The international community can help by resolving regional conflicts, assisting with trade and economic integration, and offering well-targeted development assistance.
Authored by: Marek Dąbrowski
Published in 2008
This paper provides the results of analyses of key problems related to pension systems and their reforms in Russia and Ukraine. The pension systems and their reforms in both countries are compared. They are also compared with the general picture observed in the OECD or selected countries belonging to that area. The analysis focuses on long-term trends rather than short-term shocks. The recent economic crisis is not covered since the analysis was mostly completed by 2008.
Authored by: Marek Gora, Oleksandr Rohozynsky, Oksana Sinyavskaya
Published in 2010
This paper employs a standard Tobin-Markowitz framework to analyse the determinants of capital flows into the CIS countries. Using data from 1996-2006, we find that the Russian financial crisis of 1998 has had a profound impact on capital flows into the CIS (both directly and indirectly). Firstly, it introduced a structural shift in the investors' behaviour by shifting the focus from the external factors to the internal ones, e.g. domestic interest and GDP growth rates. Secondly, it also drastically changed the impact of a number of explanatory variables on capital flows into the CIS. Political risk was found to be the second most important determinant of capital flows into the CIS. Additionally, we report some strong evidence of co-movement between portfolio flows into the CIS and CEEC, coupled with strong complementarity between global stock market activity and portfolio inflows into the CIS. Interestingly, external factors tend to be of a higher significance than internal factors for the largest members (Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan) of the CIS; whereas domestic variables tend to have a greater impact on the capital flows into the smaller CIS countries.
Authored by: Oleksandr Lozovyi
Published in 2007
The objective of this paper has been to experiment diverse economic indicators in order to help equip Ukrainian policymakers with a relatively simple tool, which could deliver warning signals about the possibility of upcoming economic problems and thereby assist the Government in designing policy instruments which would help prevent or soften a slowdown or recession.
Authored by: Vladimir Dubrovskiy, Inna Golodniuk, Janusz Szyrmer
This paper addresses the issue of the gender pay gap in the formal and informal labour markets in Poland. The authors verify the hypothesis of the existence of a gender pay gap in informal work and compare this gap with the one observed in the formal (registered) labour market.
Various analyses of available data show that size and characteristics of gender pay gap differ depending on the level of earnings. The inequality of earnings among unregistered women and men is more pronounced at the bottom tail of the earnings distribution. In the case of formal employees, inequality at the top of the distribution tends to be larger, confirming the existence of a ‘glass ceiling’.
The decomposition of the gender pay gap for selected quintiles indicates that it would be even higher if women had men’s characteristics.
A possible explanation of the results is the lack of minimum wage regulations in the informal market and the greater flexibility in agreement on wages in the higher quantiles.
Authored by: Magdalena Rokicka and Anna Ruzik-Sierdzinska
Published in 2010
Ukraine belongs to the group of countries which are known for the widespread phenomenon of subsistence and semi-subsistence farming. Individual farmers are not obliged to produce financial reports and their incomes belong to the category of unobservable incomes. When checking the eligibility for social assistance the level of their incomes needs to be estimated. In a country, where poverty rate is quite high, the coverage of the poor with financial aid is relatively low and public finances under constant control, the importance of a fair and justified methodology for income imputation is particularly strong. In this situation, an outdated and unfair current system of agriculture income estimation in Ukraine calls for immediate changes. This paper presents recommendations for the Ukrainian government in the area of agriculture income imputation, where several methods of estimating farm income were proposed (including the one based on Household Budget Survey). The recommendations were preceded with the analysis of five countries' practices in this area: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, and Poland. A review of different means testing methods, including direct means testing and proxy means testing, served as an introduction to the topic.
Authored by: Dmytro Boyarchuk, Liudmyla Kotusenko, Katarzyna Pietka-Kosinska, Roman Semko, Irina Sinitsina
Published in 2009
Demographic change (driven by the second demographic transition) led to an uncontrolled increase in scale of various social expenditure in the OECD area, especially in continental Europe. Costs of social transfers created fiscal pressure leading to the necessity of tax increases all over Europe, including the New Member States. Employment consequences of emerging higher tax wedge has become the topic of large body of research. However, surprisingly little evidence is known on distribution of that problem across workers. Is the effect of high tax wedge equally spread or certain groups of workers suffer more than others? More specifically, are low productivity workers exposed more to the problems caused by high tax wedge?
Authored by: Marek Gora, Artur Radziwill, Agnieszka Sowa, Mateusz Walewski
Published in 2006
The aim of the study is to provide a comparative overview of policy and practice concerning the development and implementation of key competences in the education systems of the 27 Member States of the European Union. In particular, the study assesses the implementation of the 8 key competences contained in the European Reference Framework of Key Competences in primary and secondary schools across the EU as well as the extent to which initial and in-service education and training of teachers equips them with the skills and competences necessary to deliver key competences effectively.
Authored by: Jean Gordon, Gabor Halasz, Magdalena Krawczyk, Tom Leney, Alain Michel, David Pepper, Elzbieta Putkiewicz, Jerzy Wisniewski
Published in 2009
Published in 2009
This report presents the methodology for the construction of the Financial Stress Index (FSI) and the Economic Sensitivity Index (ESI) and investigates the economic situation in twelve Central and East European Countries (CEECs) between 2001 and 2012. The objective of this paper was to capture key features of financial and economic vulnerability and examine the co-movement of economic turmoil and financial disturbances that strongly affected the CEECs in the last decade. The main finding is that the FSI can be used as a leading indicator and can be used to recognize changing trends in the index. A shift in the value of the index proves that EU accession has a positive, but minor influence on financial stability in the CEECs. On the other hand, the impact of the introduction of the euro in Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia is ambiguous.
For most of the countries in our sample, the FSI started to grow rapidly in 2007, reaching its peak around the third quarter of 2008. Consequently, financial stress remained high for a few quarters and started to fall gradually. For a number of countries, we observe higher financial stress in the latest period of our analysis, i.e. 2010-2012. However, the value of the FSI was significantly lower than three years earlier.
The results show that indices might be helpful in predicting future recessions. Consequently, the model will be expanded by adding a forecasting module, the launch of which is planned for April 2014.
Written by Maciej Krzak and Grzegorz Poniatowski. Published in January 2014
PDF available on our website at: http://www.case-research.eu/en/node/58411
In the report, the authors present an insight of the socio-economic drivers of economic and noneconomic activity of persons 50+, as well as their ability to adopt to SET. Not only the labour market participation, but also social engagement, beliefs, education, religious activities and housework are studied. With the use of European Social Survey data they investigate the general level of the activity among people aged 50+ in Europe as well as the relation between various aspects of activity and general labour market performance. They obtain mixed results on the concomitance of non-market and labour-market activities. At the same time they check the role of personal traits as well as pull and push factors on prematurely leaving labour market in European countries. The differences among countries in terms of the results are confronted with the institutional characteristics of the countries. Finally, selected case studies of successful activation policies are presented.
The report was released within a project NEUJOBS- “The Impact of Service Sector Innovation and Internationalisation on Growth and Productivity”, funded by the European Commission, Research Directorate General as part of the 7th Framework Programme.
Written by Izabela Styczynska, Maciej Lis, Aart Jan Riekhoff and Agnieszka Kaminska. Published in October 2013.
PDF available on our website at: http://www.case-research.eu/en/node/58346
The paper discusses the challenges of the collaborative economy as a system stimulating female social and economic empowerment and assesses the opportunities offered by the collaborative economy in increasing the female labour participation rate amongst Polish women.
The present discussion paper, serves to initiate a debate on the current and future role of clusters and cluster organisations in connection with skills development with a special focus on emerging indus-tries.
In recent years, “the cluster and skills” topic gained increasing importance among policy makers in Europe, notably in the context of the New skills Agenda, the Blueprint for sectoral cooperation on skills, Sector Skills Alliance under ERASMUS+, the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition etc 1. As this paper will show, numerous cluster organisations have initiated actions related to education and training. The rationale for this trend is the emergence of new industries and increasing technological convergence which leads to continuously change of workforce skills by industry. The ongoing discussions point out that much more clarity is needed on how current training efforts are embedded in cluster development and by whom these measures can be implemented best. Also, more insights on what kind of role clus-ter organisations can or should play to assure that workforce skills match the ongoing needs of indus-try, markets, and society are required.
The Orange Revolution in the fall of 2004 built great hopes for a better future for Ukraine. However, three years later those hopes have been replaced by disappointment, frustration and confusion. Although progress in the areas of political freedom, pluralism, civil rights and freedom in the media remains unquestionable the record of economic, institutional and legal reforms is much more problematic. The key macroeconomic indicators are not better than they were few years ago and the business climate has barely improved. The WTO accession process remains incomplete. The perspectives of Euro-Atlantic integration are continually subject to heated domestic political controversies. The political situation remains unstable, mostly due to the hasty constitutional changes that were adopted during the Orange Revolution.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the state of the Ukrainian economy at the end of 2007 and reflect upon what kind of reform program the Ukrainian government should consider, regardless of its political color. The reforms suggested in this paper involve a broad agenda of macroeconomic, social, structural and institutional measures. This agenda goes beyond the purely economic sphere and also addresses issues of legal, administrative and political reforms. The politics and political economy of any future reform effort will not be easy because the country is deeply divided in political, cultural, regional and ethnic terms. In such an environment, crucial reforms and strategic decisions will require a wider cross-party political consensus.
Authored by: Marek Dąbrowski
Published in 2007
About color and flower revolutions in former soviet countriesTrotiuc Alex
We need your opinions about the Rule of law and the Democracy value attitudes in Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, compared with the group of EU countries (former socialist bloc). Go to the dispute!
MRP-EURASIA assumes that the population of the EU's "new members" in Eastern Europe (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) has more accessible opportunities of legal resolution of civil litigation, civil rights protection and administration of local communities.
We would like to consider the actual benefits when the population got access to "adversarial justice" (including by means of jury trial and arbitrations) and "Restorative Justice" (as an alternative to the punitive method of state reaction).
We will be glad if you send your questions, that we will be able to include in the questionnaire for F2F survey in 22 countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Our aim is to identify a clear relationship between the "application of effective legal instruments" and "feeling of happiness" among broad segments of the population in these two groups of countries from different political and economic systems ..
In attention of all experts in social and political researchTrotiuc Alex
international research services in the following areas:
• Sociology of Transformations: East and West
• Social Policy
• Political Sociology
• Global, transnational and cosmopolitan sociology
• Economic Sociology
• Disaster, Conflict and Social Crisis
• Sociology of Culture and Religia
• Sociology of Consumption
• Sociology of demographic groups, social minorities and gender relations
• Sociology of law enforcement and good governance.
• Sociology of democracy development
The paper discusses the issue of labor force mobility in a broad sense, and analyses how changes in social security policy and the structure of the social safety net (SSN) affects different aspects of labor force mobility. The text is structured as follows: Introduction, then follows Chapter 2, which provides an overview of the labor market and social safety net developments in Russian and Ukraine over the last decade, as well as discusses common features of these countries. The Chapter 3 establishes theoretical models for different aspects of labor force mobility, discusses the availability of data on Russia and Ukraine to test these models, and provides a statistical analysis of the data. The Chapter 4 discusses results of the statistical analysis. The final chapter discusses policy conclusions that can be derived from comparison of the effect of the SSN on labor mobility in these two countries, and extends them to all countries in transition.
Authored by: Marek Gora, Oleksander Rohozynsky
Published in 2009
Foreign subsidiary performance and market efficiency effects are estimated and confronted in this paper using a rich firm-level panel for Polish manufacturing. Besides estimating total factor productivity, other performance measures are calculated and contrasted such as labor productivity, employment growth, markup levels and profitability. The findings show that foreign subsidiaries in Poland pay more (in wages and capital), earn less (in terms of profitability or ROA) and work harder (in terms of TFP and labor productivity) relative to their domestic counterparts. Foreign subsidiaries contribute with higher employment growth than other domestic and new firms. There is no evidence that foreign subsidiaries have significantly reduced market efficiency within the period of study and across the industries and entry modes investigated on average. Controlling for competition (which is found to have a negative effect on efficiency) the paper documents significant intra-industry spillovers. The effect is estimated to be twice as high within the foreign owned industrial communities as compared to the cross effect to domestic firms.
Authored by: Camilla Jensen
Published in 2009
Invitation to the socio political projects development in eastern europe and ...Trotiuc Alex
DISCUSSION PURPOSE: we are looking for international partners for improving of research tools and identification of the mutual interests on the following prospective research preliminary project-topics:
1."Phenomenon and background of "color" and "flower" revolutions in former Soviet countries”.
2. "Detection of strained social situations and modeling of political processes in the emerging economies".
3. "Destabilization factors in Russia's relations with the surrounding countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia."
4. "The comparative study of public opinion in the former Soviet Union contries on the social and political promises, perspectives and values of the "West": and Russia" .
5. "The forecast of socio-political attitudes of population in the way of oil and gas flows from Russia to Europe" .
6. "Measurement and forecast for socio-political attitudes in Central and Eastern Europe in the way of migration flows from Asia and North Africa".
7. "The measurements and forecasts of socio-political orientation of population in the countries of the former Soviet Union, with European perspectives (Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia)".
8. "Measurement of socio-political attitudes of Central Asian countries in the field of China and Japan's immediate interests (Eastern part of Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia)".
9. "Measurement of socio-political attitudes of Central Asian countries in the field of direct interests of China, South Korea and Japan (Eastern part of Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia)".
10. "Forecasts of social and political attitudes of population in the countries of the former Soviet Union with the risk of changing the political regime (Moldova and Transnistria, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia)".
11. "The forecasts of socio-political mood of the population in the countries of the former Soviet Union, depending on impact of Russian and Western (or pro-Western) mass media (sources, modality, style, scope, themes) and the influence of non-governmental organizations (sources, activities, persons, projects ).
12. Prospects for political parties (or electoral blocs and persons) in the space of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union as a means to influence the social and political attitudes of the population".
There is a large body of literature on the relationship between innovations and employment at the firm level, with most of the results indicating positive effects. Thus far, this kind of analysis has not been performed for Poland and it seems to be an important and interesting field for research. On the other hand, there is some empirical evidence that developments in the Polish labour market are at least partially driven by the Skill Biased Technical Change (SBTC) process. This paper tries to fill in this gap by looking at three dimensions of the relationship between innovations and employment in Poland: innovations and job creation, innovations and the skill structure of employment innovations, and wage formation. The results of the analysis indicate that there is a weak but positive relationship between the level of innovations and the probability of job creation. However, we have not been able to prove that innovations have any effect on the skill structure of labour demand in Poland. We have however found a positive and statistically significant relationship between the level of innovations and skill-biased wage changes. The results indicate that innovations positively influence the wages of skilled workers while they negatively influence the wages of the unskilled.
Authored by: Mateusz Walewski
Published in 2009
The objective of the PICK-ME (Policy Incentives for Creation of Knowledge – Methods and Evidence) research project is to provide theoretical and empirical perspectives on innovation which give a greater role to the demand-side aspect of innovation. The main question is how can policy make enterprises more willing to innovate? This task is fulfilled by identifying what we consider the central or most salient aspect of a demand-side innovation- driven economy, which is the small and entrepreneurial yet fast growing and innovative firm. We use the term “Gazelle” to signify this type of firm throughout the paper. The main concern of policy-makers should therefore be how to support Gazelle type of firms through various policies. The effectiveness of different policy instruments are considered. For example, venture capitalism is in the paper identified as an important modern institution that renders exactly the type of coordination necessary to bring about an innovation system more orientated towards the demand side. This is because experienced entrepreneurs with superior skills in terms of judging the marketability of new innovations step in as financiers. Other factor market bottlenecks on the skills side must be targeted through education policies that fosters centers of excellence. R&D incentives are also considered as a separate instrument but more a question for future research since there is no evidence available on R&D incentives as a Gazelle type of policy. Spatial policies to foster more innovation have been popular in the past. But we conclude that whereas the literature often finds that new knowledge is developed in communities of physically proximate firms, there is no overshadowing evidence showing that spatial policies in particular had any impact on generating more of the Gazelle type of firms.
Authored by: Itzhak Goldberg, Camilla Jensen
Published in 2014
The purpose of the paper is to present the current state of knowledge on both theoretical models and empirical evidence of interrelations between emerging corporate governance mechanisms and ownership structure of privatized enterprises in post- Communist countries.
Authored by: Barbara Blaszczyk, Iraj Hashi, Alexander Radygin, Richard Woodward
Published in 2003
Yourcles! Discover a completely new way of meeting peopleareconster
Did you know that men and women act quite differently from each other when searching for a partner?
Yourcles is a totally unique online game and dating service, which helps men and women find friends and significant others based on the difference between real-life male and female search behavior.
In the Yourcles environment, men and women follow their respective partner hunt patterns set in the rules of the exciting game process, which can result either in serious relationships or meeting interesting people for short-term fun.
Demographic change (driven by the second demographic transition) led to an uncontrolled increase in scale of various social expenditure in the OECD area, especially in continental Europe. Costs of social transfers created fiscal pressure leading to the necessity of tax increases all over Europe, including the New Member States. Employment consequences of emerging higher tax wedge has become the topic of large body of research. However, surprisingly little evidence is known on distribution of that problem across workers. Is the effect of high tax wedge equally spread or certain groups of workers suffer more than others? More specifically, are low productivity workers exposed more to the problems caused by high tax wedge?
Authored by: Marek Gora, Artur Radziwill, Agnieszka Sowa, Mateusz Walewski
Published in 2006
The aim of the study is to provide a comparative overview of policy and practice concerning the development and implementation of key competences in the education systems of the 27 Member States of the European Union. In particular, the study assesses the implementation of the 8 key competences contained in the European Reference Framework of Key Competences in primary and secondary schools across the EU as well as the extent to which initial and in-service education and training of teachers equips them with the skills and competences necessary to deliver key competences effectively.
Authored by: Jean Gordon, Gabor Halasz, Magdalena Krawczyk, Tom Leney, Alain Michel, David Pepper, Elzbieta Putkiewicz, Jerzy Wisniewski
Published in 2009
Published in 2009
This report presents the methodology for the construction of the Financial Stress Index (FSI) and the Economic Sensitivity Index (ESI) and investigates the economic situation in twelve Central and East European Countries (CEECs) between 2001 and 2012. The objective of this paper was to capture key features of financial and economic vulnerability and examine the co-movement of economic turmoil and financial disturbances that strongly affected the CEECs in the last decade. The main finding is that the FSI can be used as a leading indicator and can be used to recognize changing trends in the index. A shift in the value of the index proves that EU accession has a positive, but minor influence on financial stability in the CEECs. On the other hand, the impact of the introduction of the euro in Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia is ambiguous.
For most of the countries in our sample, the FSI started to grow rapidly in 2007, reaching its peak around the third quarter of 2008. Consequently, financial stress remained high for a few quarters and started to fall gradually. For a number of countries, we observe higher financial stress in the latest period of our analysis, i.e. 2010-2012. However, the value of the FSI was significantly lower than three years earlier.
The results show that indices might be helpful in predicting future recessions. Consequently, the model will be expanded by adding a forecasting module, the launch of which is planned for April 2014.
Written by Maciej Krzak and Grzegorz Poniatowski. Published in January 2014
PDF available on our website at: http://www.case-research.eu/en/node/58411
In the report, the authors present an insight of the socio-economic drivers of economic and noneconomic activity of persons 50+, as well as their ability to adopt to SET. Not only the labour market participation, but also social engagement, beliefs, education, religious activities and housework are studied. With the use of European Social Survey data they investigate the general level of the activity among people aged 50+ in Europe as well as the relation between various aspects of activity and general labour market performance. They obtain mixed results on the concomitance of non-market and labour-market activities. At the same time they check the role of personal traits as well as pull and push factors on prematurely leaving labour market in European countries. The differences among countries in terms of the results are confronted with the institutional characteristics of the countries. Finally, selected case studies of successful activation policies are presented.
The report was released within a project NEUJOBS- “The Impact of Service Sector Innovation and Internationalisation on Growth and Productivity”, funded by the European Commission, Research Directorate General as part of the 7th Framework Programme.
Written by Izabela Styczynska, Maciej Lis, Aart Jan Riekhoff and Agnieszka Kaminska. Published in October 2013.
PDF available on our website at: http://www.case-research.eu/en/node/58346
The paper discusses the challenges of the collaborative economy as a system stimulating female social and economic empowerment and assesses the opportunities offered by the collaborative economy in increasing the female labour participation rate amongst Polish women.
The present discussion paper, serves to initiate a debate on the current and future role of clusters and cluster organisations in connection with skills development with a special focus on emerging indus-tries.
In recent years, “the cluster and skills” topic gained increasing importance among policy makers in Europe, notably in the context of the New skills Agenda, the Blueprint for sectoral cooperation on skills, Sector Skills Alliance under ERASMUS+, the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition etc 1. As this paper will show, numerous cluster organisations have initiated actions related to education and training. The rationale for this trend is the emergence of new industries and increasing technological convergence which leads to continuously change of workforce skills by industry. The ongoing discussions point out that much more clarity is needed on how current training efforts are embedded in cluster development and by whom these measures can be implemented best. Also, more insights on what kind of role clus-ter organisations can or should play to assure that workforce skills match the ongoing needs of indus-try, markets, and society are required.
The Orange Revolution in the fall of 2004 built great hopes for a better future for Ukraine. However, three years later those hopes have been replaced by disappointment, frustration and confusion. Although progress in the areas of political freedom, pluralism, civil rights and freedom in the media remains unquestionable the record of economic, institutional and legal reforms is much more problematic. The key macroeconomic indicators are not better than they were few years ago and the business climate has barely improved. The WTO accession process remains incomplete. The perspectives of Euro-Atlantic integration are continually subject to heated domestic political controversies. The political situation remains unstable, mostly due to the hasty constitutional changes that were adopted during the Orange Revolution.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the state of the Ukrainian economy at the end of 2007 and reflect upon what kind of reform program the Ukrainian government should consider, regardless of its political color. The reforms suggested in this paper involve a broad agenda of macroeconomic, social, structural and institutional measures. This agenda goes beyond the purely economic sphere and also addresses issues of legal, administrative and political reforms. The politics and political economy of any future reform effort will not be easy because the country is deeply divided in political, cultural, regional and ethnic terms. In such an environment, crucial reforms and strategic decisions will require a wider cross-party political consensus.
Authored by: Marek Dąbrowski
Published in 2007
About color and flower revolutions in former soviet countriesTrotiuc Alex
We need your opinions about the Rule of law and the Democracy value attitudes in Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, compared with the group of EU countries (former socialist bloc). Go to the dispute!
MRP-EURASIA assumes that the population of the EU's "new members" in Eastern Europe (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) has more accessible opportunities of legal resolution of civil litigation, civil rights protection and administration of local communities.
We would like to consider the actual benefits when the population got access to "adversarial justice" (including by means of jury trial and arbitrations) and "Restorative Justice" (as an alternative to the punitive method of state reaction).
We will be glad if you send your questions, that we will be able to include in the questionnaire for F2F survey in 22 countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Our aim is to identify a clear relationship between the "application of effective legal instruments" and "feeling of happiness" among broad segments of the population in these two groups of countries from different political and economic systems ..
In attention of all experts in social and political researchTrotiuc Alex
international research services in the following areas:
• Sociology of Transformations: East and West
• Social Policy
• Political Sociology
• Global, transnational and cosmopolitan sociology
• Economic Sociology
• Disaster, Conflict and Social Crisis
• Sociology of Culture and Religia
• Sociology of Consumption
• Sociology of demographic groups, social minorities and gender relations
• Sociology of law enforcement and good governance.
• Sociology of democracy development
The paper discusses the issue of labor force mobility in a broad sense, and analyses how changes in social security policy and the structure of the social safety net (SSN) affects different aspects of labor force mobility. The text is structured as follows: Introduction, then follows Chapter 2, which provides an overview of the labor market and social safety net developments in Russian and Ukraine over the last decade, as well as discusses common features of these countries. The Chapter 3 establishes theoretical models for different aspects of labor force mobility, discusses the availability of data on Russia and Ukraine to test these models, and provides a statistical analysis of the data. The Chapter 4 discusses results of the statistical analysis. The final chapter discusses policy conclusions that can be derived from comparison of the effect of the SSN on labor mobility in these two countries, and extends them to all countries in transition.
Authored by: Marek Gora, Oleksander Rohozynsky
Published in 2009
Foreign subsidiary performance and market efficiency effects are estimated and confronted in this paper using a rich firm-level panel for Polish manufacturing. Besides estimating total factor productivity, other performance measures are calculated and contrasted such as labor productivity, employment growth, markup levels and profitability. The findings show that foreign subsidiaries in Poland pay more (in wages and capital), earn less (in terms of profitability or ROA) and work harder (in terms of TFP and labor productivity) relative to their domestic counterparts. Foreign subsidiaries contribute with higher employment growth than other domestic and new firms. There is no evidence that foreign subsidiaries have significantly reduced market efficiency within the period of study and across the industries and entry modes investigated on average. Controlling for competition (which is found to have a negative effect on efficiency) the paper documents significant intra-industry spillovers. The effect is estimated to be twice as high within the foreign owned industrial communities as compared to the cross effect to domestic firms.
Authored by: Camilla Jensen
Published in 2009
Invitation to the socio political projects development in eastern europe and ...Trotiuc Alex
DISCUSSION PURPOSE: we are looking for international partners for improving of research tools and identification of the mutual interests on the following prospective research preliminary project-topics:
1."Phenomenon and background of "color" and "flower" revolutions in former Soviet countries”.
2. "Detection of strained social situations and modeling of political processes in the emerging economies".
3. "Destabilization factors in Russia's relations with the surrounding countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia."
4. "The comparative study of public opinion in the former Soviet Union contries on the social and political promises, perspectives and values of the "West": and Russia" .
5. "The forecast of socio-political attitudes of population in the way of oil and gas flows from Russia to Europe" .
6. "Measurement and forecast for socio-political attitudes in Central and Eastern Europe in the way of migration flows from Asia and North Africa".
7. "The measurements and forecasts of socio-political orientation of population in the countries of the former Soviet Union, with European perspectives (Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia)".
8. "Measurement of socio-political attitudes of Central Asian countries in the field of China and Japan's immediate interests (Eastern part of Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia)".
9. "Measurement of socio-political attitudes of Central Asian countries in the field of direct interests of China, South Korea and Japan (Eastern part of Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia)".
10. "Forecasts of social and political attitudes of population in the countries of the former Soviet Union with the risk of changing the political regime (Moldova and Transnistria, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia)".
11. "The forecasts of socio-political mood of the population in the countries of the former Soviet Union, depending on impact of Russian and Western (or pro-Western) mass media (sources, modality, style, scope, themes) and the influence of non-governmental organizations (sources, activities, persons, projects ).
12. Prospects for political parties (or electoral blocs and persons) in the space of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union as a means to influence the social and political attitudes of the population".
There is a large body of literature on the relationship between innovations and employment at the firm level, with most of the results indicating positive effects. Thus far, this kind of analysis has not been performed for Poland and it seems to be an important and interesting field for research. On the other hand, there is some empirical evidence that developments in the Polish labour market are at least partially driven by the Skill Biased Technical Change (SBTC) process. This paper tries to fill in this gap by looking at three dimensions of the relationship between innovations and employment in Poland: innovations and job creation, innovations and the skill structure of employment innovations, and wage formation. The results of the analysis indicate that there is a weak but positive relationship between the level of innovations and the probability of job creation. However, we have not been able to prove that innovations have any effect on the skill structure of labour demand in Poland. We have however found a positive and statistically significant relationship between the level of innovations and skill-biased wage changes. The results indicate that innovations positively influence the wages of skilled workers while they negatively influence the wages of the unskilled.
Authored by: Mateusz Walewski
Published in 2009
The objective of the PICK-ME (Policy Incentives for Creation of Knowledge – Methods and Evidence) research project is to provide theoretical and empirical perspectives on innovation which give a greater role to the demand-side aspect of innovation. The main question is how can policy make enterprises more willing to innovate? This task is fulfilled by identifying what we consider the central or most salient aspect of a demand-side innovation- driven economy, which is the small and entrepreneurial yet fast growing and innovative firm. We use the term “Gazelle” to signify this type of firm throughout the paper. The main concern of policy-makers should therefore be how to support Gazelle type of firms through various policies. The effectiveness of different policy instruments are considered. For example, venture capitalism is in the paper identified as an important modern institution that renders exactly the type of coordination necessary to bring about an innovation system more orientated towards the demand side. This is because experienced entrepreneurs with superior skills in terms of judging the marketability of new innovations step in as financiers. Other factor market bottlenecks on the skills side must be targeted through education policies that fosters centers of excellence. R&D incentives are also considered as a separate instrument but more a question for future research since there is no evidence available on R&D incentives as a Gazelle type of policy. Spatial policies to foster more innovation have been popular in the past. But we conclude that whereas the literature often finds that new knowledge is developed in communities of physically proximate firms, there is no overshadowing evidence showing that spatial policies in particular had any impact on generating more of the Gazelle type of firms.
Authored by: Itzhak Goldberg, Camilla Jensen
Published in 2014
The purpose of the paper is to present the current state of knowledge on both theoretical models and empirical evidence of interrelations between emerging corporate governance mechanisms and ownership structure of privatized enterprises in post- Communist countries.
Authored by: Barbara Blaszczyk, Iraj Hashi, Alexander Radygin, Richard Woodward
Published in 2003
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Indian Women in the Labour Force
Dr. Vibhuti Patel
Reader, Centre for Women’s Studies
Department of Economics,
University of Mumbai, Kalina,
Santacruz (East), Mumbai-400098
E mail-vibhuti@vsnl.net Ph®-6770227
Ph(W)-6527956,57Ext.553,Fax-6528198
Statistical Profile of Women
• Women constitute ½ of the world’s population, 2/3 of the world’s labour force but get 1/10th of the world’s income and 1% of the world’s Wealth.
• As per 2001 Census, 23% of women are in the work force. 94% of all working women are in the informal sector.
Work participation rate
Major Findings of Time use Survey
– “Women carry a disproportionately greater burden of work than men and since women are responsible for a greater share of non-SNA
( system of National Accounts) work in the care economy , they enter labour market already overburdened with work.” Report of Gender Diagnosis and Budgeting in India of National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, NIPFP. December, 2001.
WORK PARTICIPATION RATES 1991
The Female Economic Activity Rate (FEAR)
Census of India, 2001, Series 1
Distribution of Women Employees Across Industries
Women in the organized Sector
Women constitute only 14% of the total employment in the organized sector. It is concentrated in Maharashtra, Delhi, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Tamilnadu.
In the urban areas, FEAR in tertiary sector has increased, from 37.6 % in 1983 to 52.9 % in 1999. (Economic Survey, 2002, GOI).
Here, women workers and employees get relatively better wages, standard working hours, and the protection of labour laws.
Women in the Informal Sector
Factors Affecting Women’s Labour Force Participation
• Changes in age-structure, urbanisation, level & nature of economic development, infrastructure, government policies, labour laws, nature of work, structure of family, culture & tradition affecting autonomy and control, fertility levels and childbearing practices, nature of housework,women’s property rights, education, age at marriage, migration, access to technology.
Segmentation in the labour market
• Nature of wage differentials (WD)-for identical tasks women are paid less. And women are confined to relatively inferior tasks, casual work.
• Causes of WD-patriarchal attitude, myths
• Effects of WD- subordination of women, son preference, man is treated as a “bread winner”- Head of the Household (HoH)
Affirmative Action to remove
Wage Differential
*Legislative measures
*Equal Remuneration Act
*Formation of women’s union
*Constitutional guarantees
*Job reservation for women
*Self Help Groups(SHGs)
Demands of the Women’s Groups
Labour Legislations
Special Facilities for Women
Women and Trade Unions(T.U.)
Women’s Action Plan for T.U.s
Role of Human Rights Organisations
Women and Development Debate
Development Alternatives With Women
Human Development With Distributive Justice
Implications of Development Process on Women
Use of conservative ideology to retrench and lay off women
Women’s Challenges to the T.U.s
Role of the UN System-ILO, UNICEF
When a woman is interested in a man, she naturally and unconsciously sends flirting signals across to him indicating her interest.
This deck is primarily meant for guys - to be able to identify these signals so as to know it when a girl they might be interested is also feeling the same way.
In this deck, we'll be looking at 11 of these signals.
The paper focuses on the social safety nets in Russian Federation and Ukraine in the view of changes on the labour market since the beginning of economic transition. The authors showed that many past phenomena (e.g. restructuring of the economy, wage and pension arrears, new groups at-risk-of-poverty, demographic transition) caused a need to change an old type social safety net (SSN) into the new one, better adapted to emerging more liberal economy problems.
Additionally, the authors analysed some gender specific issues related to social security that are caused mainly by inequalities in the labour market. Differences of earnings between men and women in Russia caused by sector segregation account for seem to be more important than the gap between gender earnings attributed to the position. In Ukraine the main contributors to gross gender differential of log earnings (that equals to 32%) explained by our model are sector segregation and occupation.
The authors also pointed out to future policy challenges in the area of social security systems in both countries. The retirement reforms introduced recently are a step in the right direction, although their impact will not be felt for a number of years. Other reforms, with more immediate results, are necessary. Social safety nets should be made more efficient and social benefits should be better targeted.
Authored by: Marek Gora, Grzegorz Kula, Oleksandr Rohozynsky, Magdalena Rokicka, Anna Ruzik-Sierdzinska
Published in 2009
The paper discusses possible directions and magnitudes of the relationship between the social security driven tax wedge, employment and shadow employment in Russia and Ukraine. The first section presents a summary of the economic and institutional background for development of the current size and structure of the socially driven tax wedge in both countries. The second section presents some theoretical considerations on the relationship between the social protection system, tax wedge, non-employment and finally, shadow employment. The third section contains an attempt to econometrically estimate the magnitude of the possible relationship between the tax wedge and total employment rates in both countries. In the fourth section, the authors try to discover the mechanism of influence of the last reform of the Ukrainian payroll tax system on the structure and size of shadow employment in the country. The last analytical section closes the circle leading the reader back from shadow employment to wages and finally to the issue of access to social security institutions. The last section concludes.
Authored by: Marek Gora, Oleksandr Rohozynsky, Irina Sinitsina, Mateusz Walewski
Published in 2009
The paper discusses possible directions and magnitudes of the relationship between the social security driven tax wedge, employment and shadow employment in Russia and Ukraine. The first section presents a summary of the economic and institutional background for development of the current size and structure of the socially driven tax wedge in both countries. The second section presents some theoretical considerations on the relationship between the social protection system, tax wedge, non-employment and finally, shadow employment. The third section contains an attempt to econometrically estimate the magnitude of the possible relationship between the tax wedge and total employment rates in both countries. In the fourth section, the authors try to discover the mechanism of influence of the last reform of the Ukrainian payroll tax system on the structure and size of shadow employment in the country. The last analytical section closes the circle leading the reader back from shadow employment to wages and finally to the issue of access to social security institutions. The last section concludes.
Authored by: Marek Gora, Oleksandr Rohozynsky, Irina Sinitsina, Mateusz Walewski
Published in 2009
During the last two decades the CIS countries have received very significant amounts of technical assistance from international development organizations and bilateral donors. While this has played a positive and important role in the transformation of these societies, practically all stakeholders currently share the opinion that many problems have accumulated in the area of technical cooperation with CIS countries. This paper intends to outline these problems, analyze their underlying reasons - including the changing environment for technical cooperation in the CIS - and the interaction of the interests of beneficiaries, donors and providers in the process of implementing technical cooperation projects. The analysis suggests that a good understanding, recognition and coordination of the interests of all TC stakeholders and a reduction in the information gap between the various participants in the technical cooperation process are necessary for improving the effectiveness of technical cooperation.
Authored by: Aziz Atamanov, Roman Mogilevsky
Published in 2008
The CIS region is of vital importance for the EU countries considering that both are interconnected through cooperation or membership in supranational political and economic institutions (OSCE, WTO, OECD, NATO, etc.), through transport and energy corridors, through investment, trade and migration trends.
The interests of EU member states in the region are very diverse and are sometimes pursued in contradiction to one another. The overarching interest is of an economic nature, given the large reserves of natural resources (particularly gas and oil) and due to the size of the CIS market of 277 million consumers. Security and immigration issues also rank high on the list, whereas EU countries are less concerned with democratisation trends in the CIS. Russia is the most important CIS partner for a majority of EU countries. Energy plays a disproportionally high role in EU member states (MS) - Russia relations and is also a strong determinant of the overall heterogeneity of EU MS policies towards Russia. The type of bilateral relations which the EU MS maintain with one sub-region of the CIS (particularly the EENP, but increasingly also Central Asia) also affects their relations with Russia. Cultural closeness and a common history still play a large part in the development of bilateral relations. The accession to the EU of Central and Eastern European states has altered the existing relations between them and their eastern CIS neighbours, thereby also modifying their interests in the region. Regrettably, the EU's policies towards Russia and the EENP region have not yet been able to provide a playing field able to compensate for this alteration.
Thus, the present report studies the various interests (political, security, economic, cultural) which underpin relations between the EU member states and the CIS countries and also discusses the latest developments in EU policies towards a specific CIS sub-region (Russia, the Eastern ENP and Central Asia), thereby providing a broad picture of the type of interests, how they are pursued by the EU member states and where these intersect or clash.
Authored by: George Dura
Published in 2008
The report aims to identify major existing gaps in the five socio-economic dimensions (economic, human, openness, environmental, and institutional) and to reveal those gaps which could potentially hinder social and economic integration of neighbor states with the EU. To achieve this, the authors aim to assess the existing trends in the size of the gaps across countries and problem areas, taking into consideration the specific origin of the gap between EU15/EU12, on the one hand, and FSU republics, EU candidates and West Balkan countries, on the other hand.
Authored by: Aziz Atamanov, Alexander Chubrik, Irina Denisova, Vladimir Dubrovskiy, Marina Kartseva, Irina Lukashova, Irina Makenbaeva, Magdalena Rokicka, Irina Sinitsina
Published in 2008
Michael Tokmazishvili
The purpose of this paper is to examine the economic aspects of EU policy towards its Eastern neighbors in the former Soviet Union. For a long period of time, this region was considered as less important for the EU, as compared to Central and Eastern Europe, which was the subject of a far-reaching economic and political integration offer materialized in two rounds of EU Eastern Enlargements (2004, 2007). However, moving the EU's geographical frontier further to the East and Southeast increased the importance of the CIS region as a potential partner of the enlarged EU. In 2004, East European and Caucasus countries were invited to participate in the European Neighborhood Policy a new EU external policy framework also addressed to the Southern Mediterranean countries. Russia has been attempting to build a strategic political and economic partnership with the EU outside the ENP framework but the content of this relationship is, in fact, very similar to the ENP.
A general weakness of the ENP is that there is a lack of balance between farreaching expectations with respect to neighbors' policies and reforms, and limited and distant rewards that can potentially be offered. Thus, making this cooperation framework more effective requires a serious enhancement of the rewards using, to the extent possible, the positive experience of previous EU enlargements. The nature of contemporary economic relations in the globalized world calls for a more complex package-type approach to economic integration rather than just limiting cooperation to some narrow fields.
Authored by: Marek Dąbrowski
Published in 2007
Current report aims to identify major existing gaps in the four socio-economic dimensions (economic, human, environmental, and institutional) and to reveal those gaps which could potentially hinder social and economic integration of neighbor states with the EU. To achieve this, the authors aim to assess the existing trends in the size of the gaps across countries and problem areas, taking into consideration the specific origin of the gap between EU15/EU12, on the one hand, and FSU republics, EU candidates and West Balkan countries, on the other hand.
Authored by: Alexander Chubrik, Irina Denisova, Vladimir Dubrovskiy, Marina Kartseva, Irina Makenbaeva, Magdalena Rokicka, Irina Sinitsina, Michael Tokmazishvili
Published in 2007
This study is part of the project entitled “Costs and Benefits of Labour Mobility between the EU and the Eastern Partnership Countries” for the European Commission1. The study was written by Luca Barbone (CASE) Mikhail Bonch- Osmolovskiy (CASE) and Matthias Luecke (CASE, Kiel). It is based on the six country studies for the Eastern Partnership countries commissioned under this project and prepared by Mihran Galstyan and Gagik Makaryan (Armenia), Azer Allahveranov and Emin Huseynov (Azerbaijan), Aleksander Chubrik and Aliaksei Kazlou (Belarus), Lasha Labadze and Mirjan Tukhashvili (Georgia), Vasile Cantarji and Georgeta Mincu (Moldova), Tom Coupé and Hanna Vakhitova (Ukraine). The authors would like to thank for their comments and suggestions Kathryn Anderson, Martin Kahanec, Costanza Biavaschi, Lucia Kurekova, Monica Bucurenciu, Borbala Szegeli, Giovanni Cremonini and Ummuhan Bardak, as well as the dbaretailed review provided by IOM. The views in this study are those of the authors’ only, and should not be interpreted as representing the official position of the European Commission and its institutions.
Written by Luca Barbone, Mikhail Bonch-Osmolovsky and Matthias Luecke. Published in September 2013.
PDF available on our website at: http://www.case-research.eu/en/node/58264
This paper analyzes the direct and indirect income effects of international labor migration and remittances in selected CIS countries. The analysis is based on computable general equilibrium (CGE) models for Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. All net emigration countries would experience a sharp contraction of private consumption in the absence of remittances. In Russia, the main effect of immigration has been to hold down the real wage (as potential capital stock adjustments in response to immigration are not reflected in the authors comparative-static modeling framework). The paper concludes that because of the important contribution of migration and remittances to stabilizing and sustaining incomes in many CIS countries, enhanced opportunities for legal labor migration should figure prominently in any deepening of bilateral relations between CIS countries and the European Union under the European Neighborhood Policy.
Authored by: Aziz Atamanov, Toman Omar Mahmoud, Roman Mogilevsky, Kseniya Tereshchenko, Natalia Tourdyeva
Published in 2009
Ainura Uzagalieva
Vitaly Vavryschuk
Ukraine is a migration-intensive country, with an estimated 1.5-2 million labour migrants (about 5% of the working-age population). Slightly over a half of these migrants travel for work to the EU. This study discusses the impact of this large pool of migrants on both the sending and receiving countries. It also assesses how liberalisation of the EU visa regime, something that the EU is currently negotiating with Ukraine, will affect the stream of Ukrainian labour migrants to EU countries. Our study suggests that the number of tourists will increase substantially, whereas the increase in the number of labour migrants is unlikely to be very large. We also suggest that the number of legal migrants is likely to increase, but at the same time the number of illegal migrants will decline because currently only a third of migrants from Ukraine have both residence and work permits in the EU, while about a quarter of them stay there illegally.
Authored by: Hannah Vakhitova and Tom Coupé
Published in 2013
This paper studies costs and benefits of institutional harmonisation in the context of EU relations with its neighbors. The purpose of this paper is to outline the likely forms of institutional harmonisation between the EU and its Eastern neighbors and provide an
overview of the methodologies that can be used in measuring its effects (costs and benefits). This paper serves as a background for two measurement exercises – one on benefits and another on costs – that are to be undertaken during the second stage of research.
Authored by: Veliko Dimitrov, Vladimir Dubrovskiy, Anna Kolesnichenko, Irina Orlova
Published in 2007
In this paper the author presents a general assessment of the labour market situation of older workers in the Czech Republic, starting with a more general overview of the demographic situation and emphasizing the generational differences among the young-old and older cohorts, underlying a number of different problems as well as solutions. Further in the paper she addresses the impact of the recent economic situation on employment levels, showing that the recovery in terms of employment has not yet begun and that the impact on older workers is (at least) two-fold: firstly, for older workers it is very difficult to find a new job once unemployed; secondly, if employed, the pressure on workability and the increasing demands of workplaces may be harder to bear for the older the worker. She describes a National Action Plan Supporting Positive Ageing (2013-2017) and other examples of good and transferable praxes which address some of the active ageing issues in an innovative way.
The second part of this report examines the issues of employability, workability and age-management as perceived by some of the key actors. The report goes into greater detail on the topic of paid work after retirement, which is considered an important part of the Czech economy, despite the fact that the employment of sizable groups of older workers after retirement is undeclared. Self-entrepreneurship and independent work in later life are another realm of employment that is increasing in importance in the Czech economy; however, as consulted experts argue, it is not to be taken as an unproblematic solution to late-life careers. In the last chapter the author turns her attention to the lifelong learning of older workers and to their up-skilling/retraining. In the concluding remarks, she reemphasizes the need to address the heterogeneity of the older workforce, in the sense of age/generational affiliation, health, socio-economic and other characteristics.
Authored by: Lucie Vidovicova
Published in 2014
The current fiscal imbalances and fragilities in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries (SEMC) are the result of decades of instability, but have become more visible since 2008, when a combination of adverse economic and political shocks (the global and European financial crises, Arab Spring) hit the region. In an environment of slower growth and higher public expenditure pressures, fiscal deficits and public debts have increased rapidly. This has led to the deterioration of current accounts, a depletion of official reserves, the depreciation of some currencies and higher inflationary pressure.
To avoid the danger of public debt and a balance-of-payment crisis, comprehensive economic reforms, including fiscal adjustment, are urgently needed. These reforms should involve eliminating energy and food subsidies and replacing them with targeted social assistance, reducing the oversized public administration and privatizing public sector enterprises, improving the business climate, increasing trade and investment openness, and sector diversification. The SEMC may also benefit from a peace dividend if the numerous internal and regional conflicts are resolved.
However, the success of economic reforms will depend on the results of the political transition, i.e., the ability to build stable democratic regimes which can resist populist temptations and rally political support for more rational economic policies.
Authored by: Marek Dąbrowski
Published in 2014
The aim of this study is to estimate the impact of the removal of NTBs in trade between the EU and its selected CIS partners: Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan (CIS5). The report includes a discussion of methodologies of measurement of non-tariff barriers and the impact of their removal, including a review of previous studies focusing on CEE and CIS regions. Further, we employ a computable general equilibrium model encompassing the following three pillars of trade facilitation: legislative and regulatory approximation, reform of customs rules and procedures and liberalization of the access of foreign providers of services. We conclude that a reduction of NTBs and improved access to the EU market would bring significant benefits to the CIS5 countries in terms of welfare gains, GDP growth, increases in real wages and expansion of international trade. The possible welfare implications of deep integration with the EU range from 5.8% of GDP in Ukraine to sizeable expected gains in Armenia (3.1%), Russia (2.8%), Azerbaijan (1.8%) and Georgia (1.7%).
Authored by: Maryla Maliszewska, Irina Orlova, Svitlana Taran
Published in 2009
Implementation of the European internal market and East-West integration has been accompanied by dramatic change in the spatial distribution of economic activity, with higher growth west and east of a longitude degree through Germany and Italy. In the east, income growth has been accompanied by increasing regional disparities within countries. We examine theoretically and empirically whether European integration as such can explain these developments. Using a numerical simulation model with 9 countries and 90 regions, theoretical predictions are derived about how various patterns of integration may affect the income distribution. Comparing with reality, we find that a reduction in distance-related trade costs combined with east-west integration is best able to explain the actual changes in Europe's economic geography. This suggests that the implementation of the European internal market or the Euro has "made Europe smaller". In Central Europe, capital regions grow faster and there are few east-west growth differences inside countries. There is no convincing support for the hypothesis that European integration had adverse effects on non-members.
Authored by: Arne Melchior
Published in 2009
The report reviews key issues in energy trade and cooperation between the EU and CIS countries. It describes historical trends of oil and gas demand in the EU, other European and CIS countries and offers demand forecasts until 2030. Recent developments in oil and gas production and exports from Russia and Caspian countries are covered in detail leading to the discussion of the likely export potential of these regions. The key factors determining the production outlook, trade-offs and competition related to energy resources transportation choices are also discussed. The report also covers the interests and role of transit countries in relations between producer and consumer regions. The analytical section leads to policy recommendations that focus mainly on the EU.
Authored by: Sabit Bagirov, Leonid Grigoriev, Wojciech Paczynski, Vladimer Papava, Marcel Salikhov, Michael Tokmazishvili
Published in 2009
The report examines the social and economic drivers and impact of circular migration between Belarus and Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. The core question the authors sought to address was how managing circular migration could, in the long term, help to optimise labour resources in both the country of origin and the destination countries. In the pages that follow, the authors of the report present the current and forecasted labour market and demographic situation in their respective countries as well as the dynamics and characteristics of short-term labour migration flows between Belarus and Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, concentrating on the period since 2010. They also outline and discuss related policy responses and evaluate prospects for cooperation on circular migration.
Podręcznik został opracowany w celu przekazania trenerom i nauczycielom podstawowej wiedzy, która może być przydatna w prowadzeniu szkoleń promujących pracę rejestrowaną. Prezentuje on z jednej strony korzyści z pracy rejestrowanej, z drugiej – potencjalne koszty związane z pracą nierejestrowaną. W pierwszej kolejności informacje te przedstawiono w odniesieniu do pracowników najemnych (rozdział 2), podkreślając w sposób szczególny to, że negatywne konsekwencje pracy nierejestrowanej są ponoszone przez całe życie. Ze względu na specyficzną sytuację cudzoziemców pracujących w Polsce konsekwencje ponoszone przez tę grupę opisano oddzielnie (rozdział 3). Ponadto zaprezentowano skutki dotyczące pracodawców z szarej strefy z wyodrębnieniem tych, którzy zatrudniają cudzoziemców (rozdział 4). Uzupełnieniem przedstawionych informacji jest opis działań podejmowanych przez państwo w celu ograniczenia zjawiska pracy nierejestrowanej w Polsce (rozdział 5) oraz prowadzonych w Wielkiej Brytanii, czyli w kraju będącym liderem w walce z szarą strefą (rozdział 6).
European countries face a challenge related to the economic and social consequences of their societies’ aging. Specifically, pension systems must adjust to the coming changes, maintaining both financial stability, connected with equalizing inflows from premiums and spending on pensions, and simultaneously the sufficiency of benefits, protecting retirees against poverty and smoothing consumption over their lives, i.e. ensuring the ability to pay for consumption needs at each stage of life, regardless of income from labor.
One of the key instruments applied toward these goals is the retirement age. Formally it is a legally established boundary: once people have crossed it – on average – they significantly lose their ability to perform work (the so-called old-age risk). But since the 1970s, in many developed countries the retirement age has become an instrument of social and labor-market policy. Specifically, in the 1970s and ‘80s, an early retirement age was perceived as a solution allowing a reduction in the supply of labor, particularly among people with relatively low competencies who were approaching retirement age, which is called the lump of labor fallacy. It was often believed that people taking early retirement freed up jobs for the young. But a range of economic evidence shows that the number of jobs is not fixed, and those who retire don’t in fact free up jobs. On the contrary, because of higher spending by pension systems, labor costs rise, which limits the supply of jobs. In general, a good situation on the labor market supports employment of both the youngest and the oldest labor force participants. Additionally, a lower retirement age for women was maintained, which resulted to a high degree from cultural conditions and norms that are typical for traditional societies.
Until now, the banking sector has been one of the strong points of Poland’s economy. In contrast to banks in the U.S. and leading Western European economies, lenders in Poland came through the 2008 global financial crisis without a scratch, without needing state financial support. But in recent years the industry’s problems have been growing, creating a threat to economic growth and gains in living standards.
For an economy’s productivity to increase, funds can’t go to all companies evenly, and definitely shouldn’t go to those that are most lacking in funds, but to those that will use them most efficiently. This is true of total external financing, and thus funding both from the banking sector and from parabanks, the capital market and funds from public institutions. In Poland, in light of the relatively modest scale of the capital market, banks play a clearly dominant role in external financing of companies. This is why the author of this text focuses on the bank credit allocation efficiency.
The author points out that in the very near future, conditions will emerge in Poland which – as the experience of other countries shows – create a risk of reduced efficiency of credit allocation to business. Additionally, in Poland today, bank lending to companies is to a high degree being replaced by funds from state aid, which reduces the efficiency of allocation of external funds to companies (both loans and subsidies), as allocation of government subsidies is not usually based on efficiency. This decline in external financing allocation efficiency may slow, halt or even reverse the process, that has been uninterrupted for 28 years, of Poland’s convergence, i.e. the narrowing of the gap in living standards between Poland and the West.
The economic characteristics of the COVID-19 crisis differ from those of previous crises. It is a combination of demand- and supply-side constraints which led to the formation of a monetary overhang that will be unfrozen once the pandemic ends. Monetary policy must take this effect into consideration, along with other pro-inflationary factors, in the post-pandemic era. It must also think in advance about how to avoid a policy trap coming from fiscal dominance.
This paper is organized as follows: Chapter 2 deals with the economic characteristics of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the effectiveness of the monetary policy response measures undertaken. In Chapter 3, we analyse the monetary policy decisions of the ECB (and other major CBs for comparison) and their effectiveness in achieving the declared policy goals in the short term. Chapter 4 is devoted to an analysis of the policy challenges which may be faced by the ECB and other major CBs once the pandemic emergency comes to its end. Chapter 5 contains a summary and the conclusions of our analysis.
Purpose: This paper tries to identify the wage gap between informal and formal workers and tests for the two-tier structure of the informal labour market in Poland.
Design/methodology/approach: I employ the propensity score matching (PSM) technique and use data from the Polish Labour Force Survey (LFS) for the period 2009–2017 to estimate the wage gap between informal and formal workers, both at the means and along the wage distribution. I use two definitions of informal employment: a) employment without a written agreement and b) employment while officially registered as unemployed at a labour office. In order to reduce the bias resulting from the non-random selection of
individuals into informal employment, I use a rich set of control variables representing several individual characteristics.
Findings: After controlling for observed heterogeneity, I find that on average informal workers earn less than formal workers, both in terms of monthly earnings and hourly wage. This result is not sensitive to the definition of informal employment used and is
stable over the analysed time period (2009–2017). However, the wage penalty to informal employment is substantially higher for individuals at the bottom of the wage distribution, which supports the hypothesis of the two-tier structure of the informal labour market in Poland.
Originality/value: The main contribution of this study is that it identifies the two-tier structure of the informal labour market in Poland: informal workers in the first quartile of the wage distribution and those above the first quartile appear to be in two partially different segments of the labour market.
The rule of law, by securing civil and economic rights, directly contributes to social prosperity and is one of our societies’ greatest achievements. In the European Union (EU), the rule of law is enshrined in the Treaties of its founding and is recognised not just as a necessary condition of a liberal democratic society, but also as an important requirement for a stable, effective, and sustainable market economy. In fact, it was the stability and equality of opportunity provided by the rule of law that enabled the post-war Wirtschaftswunder in Germany and the post-Communist resuscitation of the economy in Poland.
But the rule of law is a living concept that is constantly evolving – both in its formal, de jure dimension, embodied in legislation, and its de facto dimension, or its reception by society. In Poland, in particular, according to the EU, the rule of law has been heavily challenged by government since 2015 and has evolved amid continued pressure exerted on the institutions which execute laws. More recently, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic transformed the perception of the rule of law and its boundaries throughout the EU and beyond (Marzocchi, 2020).
This Study contains Value Added Tax (VAT) Gap estimates for 2018, fast estimates using a simplified methodology for 2019, the year immediately preceding the analysis, and includes revised estimates for 2014-2017. It also includes the updated and extended results of the econometric analysis of VAT Gap determinants initiated and initially reported in the 2018 Report (Poniatowski et al., 2018). As a novelty, the econometric analysis to forecast potential impacts of the coronavirus crisis and resulting recession on the evolution of the VAT Gap in 2020 is reported.
In 2018, most European Union (EU) Member States (MS) saw a slight decrease in the pace of gross domestic product (GDP) growth, but the economic conditions for increasing tax compliance remained favourable. We estimate that the VAT total tax liability (VTTL) in 2018 increased by 3.6 percent whereas VAT revenue increased by 4.2 percent, leading to a decline in the VAT Gap in both relative and nominal terms. In relative terms, the EU-wide Gap dropped to 11 percent and EUR 140 billion. Fast estimates show that the VAT Gap will likely continue to decline in 2019.
Of the EU-28, the smallest Gaps were observed in Sweden (0.7 percent), Croatia (3.5 percent), and Finland (3.6 percent), the largest – in Romania (33.8 percent), Greece (30.1 percent), and Lithuania (25.9 percent). Overall, half of the EU-28 MS recorded a Gap above 9.2 percent. In nominal terms, the largest Gaps were recorded in Italy (EUR 35.4 billion), the United Kingdom (EUR 23.5 billion), and Germany (EUR 22 billion).
The euro is the second most important global currency after the US dollar. However, its international role has not increased since its inception in 1999. The private sector prefers using the US dollar rather than the euro because the financial market for US dollar-denominated assets is larger and deeper; network externalities and inertia also play a role. Increasing the attractiveness of the euro outside the euro area requires, among others, a proactive role for the European Central Bank and completing the Banking Union and Capital Market Union.
Forecasting during a strong shock is burdened with exceptionally high uncertainty. This gives rise to the temptation to formulate alarmist forecasts. Experiences from earlier pandemics, particularly those from the 20th century, for which we have the most data, don’t provide a basis for this. The mildest of them weakened growth by less than 1 percentage point, and the worst, the Spanish Flu, by 6 percentage points. Still, even the Spanish Flu never caused losses on the order of 20% of GDP – not even where it turned out to be a humanitarian disaster, costing the lives of 3-5% of the population. History suggests that if pandemics lead to such deep losses at all, it’s only in particular quarters and not over a whole year, as economic activity rebounds. The strength of that rebound is largely determined by economic policy. The purpose of this work is to describe possible scenarios for a rebound in Polish economic growth after the epidemic.
A separate issue, no less important, is what world will emerge from the current crisis. In the face of the 2008 financial crisis, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” Such changes can make the economy and society function better than before the crisis. Unfortunately, the opportunities created by the global financial crisis were squandered. Today’s task is more difficult; the scale of various problems has expanded even more. Without deep structural and institutional changes, the world will be facing enduring social and economic problems, accompanied by long-term stagnation.
"Many brilliant prophecies have appeared for the future of the EU and our entire planet. I believe that Europe, in its own style, will draw pragmatic conclusions from the crisis, not revolutionary ones; conclusions that will allow us to continue enjoying a Europe without borders. Brussels will demonstrate its usefulness; it will react ably and flexibly. First of all, contrary to the deceitful statements of members of the Polish government, the EU warned of the threats already in 2021. Secondly, already in mid-March EU assistance programs were ready, i.e. earlier than the PiS government’s “shield” program. The conclusion from the crisis will be a strengthening of all the preventive mechanisms that allow us to recognize threats and react in time of need. Research programs will be more strongly directed toward diagnosing and treating infectious diseases. Europe will gain greater self-sufficiency in the area of medical equipment and drugs, and the EU – greater competencies in the area of the health service, thus far entrusted to the member states. The 2021-27 budget must be reconstructed, to supplement the priority of the Green Deal with economic stimulus programs. In this way structural funds, which have the greatest multiplier effect for investment and the labor market, may return to favor. So once again: an addition, as a conclusion from the crisis, and not a reinvention of the EU," writes Dr. Janusz Lewandowski the author of the 162nd mBank-CASE seminar Proceeding.
Dla wielu rodaków europejskość Polski jest oczywista, trudno jest im nawet wyobrazić sobie, jak kształtowałyby się losy naszego kraju bez uczestnictwa w integracji europejskiej. Szczególnie młode pokolenie traktuje osiągnięty przez nas dzięki uczestnictwie w Unii ogromny postęp cywilizacyjny jako coś danego i naturalnego. Jednak świadomość tego, jaki był nasz punkt wyjścia, jaką przeszliśmy drogę i jak przyczyniły się do tego unijne działania oraz jakie wynikały z tego korzyści powinna nam stale towarzyszyć. Bez tej świadomości, starannego weryfikowania faktów i docenienia naszych osiągnięć grozi nam uleganie niesprawdzonym argumentom przeciwników integracji europejskiej i popełnienie nieodwracalnych błędów. Dla tych, którzy chcą poznać te fakty, przygotowany został raport "Nasza Europa. 15 lat Polski w Unii Europejskiej". Podjęto w nim ocenę 15 lat członkostwa Polski z perspektywy doświadczeń procesu integracji, z jego barierami i sukcesami, a także wyzwaniami przyszłości.
Raport jest wynikiem pracy zbiorowej licznych ekspertów z różnych dziedzin, od wielu lat analizujących wielowymiarowe efekty działania instytucji UE oraz współpracy z krajami członkowskimi na podstawie europejskich wartości i mechanizmów. Autorzy podsumowują korzyści członkostwa Polski w Unii Europejskiej na podstawie faktów, nie stroniąc jednakże od własnych ocen i refleksji.
This report is the result of the joint work of a number of experts from various fields who have been - for many years – analysing the multidimensional effects of EU institutions and cooperation with Member States pursuant to European values and mechanisms. The authors summarise the benefits of Poland’s membership in the EU based on facts; however, they do not hide their own views and reflections. They also demonstrate the barriers and challenges to further European integration.
This report was prepared by CASE, one of the oldest independent think tanks in Central and Eastern Europe, utilising its nearly 30 years of experience in providing objective analyses and recommendations with respect to socioeconomic topics. It is both an expression of concern about Poland’s future in the EU, as well as the authors’ contribution to the debate on further European integration.
Poland’s new Employee Capital Plans (PPK) scheme, which is mandatory for employers, started to be implemented in July 2019. The article looks at the systemic solutions applied in the programme from the perspective of the concept of the simultaneous reconstruction of the retirement pension system. The aim is to present arguments for and against the project from the point of view of various actors, and to assess the chances of success for the new system. The article offers a detailed study of legal solutions, an analysis of the literature on the subject, and reports of institutions that supervise pension funds. The results of this analysis point to the lack of cohesion between certain solutions of the 1999 pension reform and expose a lack of consistency in how the reform was carried out, which led to the eventual removal of the capital part of the pension system. The study shows that additional saving for old age is advisable in the country’s current demographic situation and necessary for both economic and social reasons. However, the systemic solutions offered by the government appear to be chiefly designated to serve short-term state interests and do not create sufficient incentives for pension plan participants to join the programme.
Belarus was among the few post-communist countries to resign from comprehensive market reforms and attempt to improve the efficiency of the economy through administrative means, leaving market mechanisms only an auxiliary role. Since its inception, the ‘Belarusian economic model’ has undergone several revisions of a de-statisation and de-regulation kind, but still the Belarusian economy remains dominated by the state. This paper analyses the characteristic features of the Belarusian economic system – especially those related to the public sector – as well as its evolution over time during the period following its independence. The paper concludes that during the post-Soviet period, the Belarusian economy evolved from a quasi-Soviet system based on state property, state planning, support to inefficient enterprises and the massive redistribution of funds to a more flexible hybrid model where the public sector still remains the core of the economy. The case of Belarus shows that presently there is no appropriate theoretical perspective which, in an unmodified form, could be applied to study this type of economic system. Therefore, a new perspective based on an already existing but updated approach or a multidisciplinary approach that incorporates the duality of the Belarusian economy is required.
Belarusian economy has been stagnating in 2011-2015 after 15 years of a high annual average growth rate. In 2015, after four years of stagnation, the Belarusian economy slid into a recession, its first since 1996, and experienced both cyclical and structural recessions. Since 2015, the Belarusian government and the National Bank of Belarus have been giving economic reforms a good chance thanks to gradual but consistent actions aimed at maintaining macroeconomic stability and economic liberalization. It seems that the economic authorities have sustained more transformation efforts during 2015-2018 than in the previous 24 years since 1991.
As the relative welfare level in Belarus is currently 64% compared to the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries average, Belarus needs to build stronger fundaments of sustainable growth by continuing and accelerating the implementation of institutional transformation, primarily by fostering elimination of existing administrative mechanisms of inefficient resource allocation. Based on the experience of the CEE countries’ economic transformation, we highlight five lessons for the purpose of the economic reforms that Belarus still faces today: keeping macroeconomic stability, restructuring and improving the governance of state-owned enterprises, developing the financial market, increasing taxation efficiency, and deepening fiscal decentralization.
Inflation in advanced economies is low by historical standards but there is no threat of deflation. Slower economic growth is caused by supply-side constraints rather than low inflation. Below-the-target inflation does not damage the reputation of central banks. Thus, central banks should not try to bring inflation back to the targeted level of 2%. Rather, they should revise the inflation target downwards and publicly explain the rationale for such a move. Risks to the independence of central banks come from their additional mandates (beyond price stability) and populist politics.
Estonia has Europe’s most transparent tax system (while Poland is second-to-last, in 35th place), and is also known for its pioneering approach to taxation of legal persons’ income. Since 2000, payers of Estonian corporate tax don’t pay tax on their profits as long as they don’t realize them. In principle, this approach should make access to capital easier, spark investment by companies and contribute to faster economic growth. Are these and other positive effects really noticeable in Estonia? Have other countries followed in this country’s footsteps? Would deferment of income tax be possible and beneficial for Poland? How would this affect revenue from tax on corporate profits? Would investors come to see Poland as a tax haven? Does the Estonian system limit tax avoidance and evasion, or actually the opposite? Is such a system fair? Are intermediate solutions possible, which would combine the strengths or limit the weaknesses of the classical and Estonian models of profit tax? These questions are discussed in the mBank-CASE seminar Proceeding no. 163, written by Dmitri Jegorov, deputy general secretary of the Estonian Finance Ministry, who directs the country’s tax and customs policy, Dr. Anna Leszczyłowska of the Poznań University of Economics and Business and Aleksander Łożykowski of the Warsaw School of Economics.
The trade war between the U.S. and China began in March 2018. The American side raised import duties on aluminum and steel from China, which were later extended to other countries, including Canada, Mexico and the EU member states. This drew a negative reaction from those countries and bilateral negotiations with the U.S. In June 2018 America, referring to Section 301 of its 1974 Trade Act, raised tariffs to 25% on 818 groups of products imported from China, arguing that the tariff increase was a response to years of theft of American intellectual property and dishonest trade practices, which has caused the U.S. trade deficit.
Will this trade war mean the collapse of the multilateral trading system and a transition to bilateral relationships? What are the possibilities for increasing tariffs in light of World Trade Organization rules? Can the conflict be resolved using the WTO dispute-resolution mechanism? What are the consequences of the trade war for American consumers and producers, and for suppliers from other countries? How high will tariffs climb as a result of a global trade war? How far can trade volumes and GDP fall if the worst-case scenario comes to pass? Professor Jan J. Michałek and Dr. Przemysław Woźniak give answers to these questions in the mBank-CASE Seminar Proceeding No. 161.
This Report has been prepared for the European Commission, DG TAXUD under contract TAXUD/2017/DE/329, “Study and Reports on the VAT Gap in the EU-28 Member States” and serves as a follow-up to the six reports published between 2013 and 2018.
This Study contains new estimates of the Value Added Tax (VAT) Gap for 2017, as well as updated estimates for 2013-2016. As a novelty in this series of reports, so called “fast VAT Gap estimates” are also presented the year immediately preceding the analysis, namely for 2018. In addition, the study reports the results of the econometric analysis of VAT Gap determinants initiated and initially reported in the 2018 Report (Poniatowski et al., 2018). It also scrutinises the Policy Gap in 2017 as well as the contribution that reduced rates and exemptions made to the theoretical VAT revenue losses.
More from CASE Center for Social and Economic Research (20)
how to sell pi coins in South Korea profitably.DOT TECH
Yes. You can sell your pi network coins in South Korea or any other country, by finding a verified pi merchant
What is a verified pi merchant?
Since pi network is not launched yet on any exchange, the only way you can sell pi coins is by selling to a verified pi merchant, and this is because pi network is not launched yet on any exchange and no pre-sale or ico offerings Is done on pi.
Since there is no pre-sale, the only way exchanges can get pi is by buying from miners. So a pi merchant facilitates these transactions by acting as a bridge for both transactions.
How can i find a pi vendor/merchant?
Well for those who haven't traded with a pi merchant or who don't already have one. I will leave the telegram id of my personal pi merchant who i trade pi with.
Tele gram: @Pi_vendor_247
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Even tho Pi network is not listed on any exchange yet.
Buying/Selling or investing in pi network coins is highly possible through the help of vendors. You can buy from vendors[ buy directly from the pi network miners and resell it]. I will leave the telegram contact of my personal vendor.
@Pi_vendor_247
how to sell pi coins on Bitmart crypto exchangeDOT TECH
Yes. Pi network coins can be exchanged but not on bitmart exchange. Because pi network is still in the enclosed mainnet. The only way pioneers are able to trade pi coins is by reselling the pi coins to pi verified merchants.
A verified merchant is someone who buys pi network coins and resell it to exchanges looking forward to hold till mainnet launch.
I will leave the telegram contact of my personal pi merchant to trade with.
@Pi_vendor_247
Resume
• Real GDP growth slowed down due to problems with access to electricity caused by the destruction of manoeuvrable electricity generation by Russian drones and missiles.
• Exports and imports continued growing due to better logistics through the Ukrainian sea corridor and road. Polish farmers and drivers stopped blocking borders at the end of April.
• In April, both the Tax and Customs Services over-executed the revenue plan. Moreover, the NBU transferred twice the planned profit to the budget.
• The European side approved the Ukraine Plan, which the government adopted to determine indicators for the Ukraine Facility. That approval will allow Ukraine to receive a EUR 1.9 bn loan from the EU in May. At the same time, the EU provided Ukraine with a EUR 1.5 bn loan in April, as the government fulfilled five indicators under the Ukraine Plan.
• The USA has finally approved an aid package for Ukraine, which includes USD 7.8 bn of budget support; however, the conditions and timing of the assistance are still unknown.
• As in March, annual consumer inflation amounted to 3.2% yoy in April.
• At the April monetary policy meeting, the NBU again reduced the key policy rate from 14.5% to 13.5% per annum.
• Over the past four weeks, the hryvnia exchange rate has stabilized in the UAH 39-40 per USD range.
how can I sell my pi coins for cash in a pi APPDOT TECH
You can't sell your pi coins in the pi network app. because it is not listed yet on any exchange.
The only way you can sell is by trading your pi coins with an investor (a person looking forward to hold massive amounts of pi coins before mainnet launch) .
You don't need to meet the investor directly all the trades are done with a pi vendor/merchant (a person that buys the pi coins from miners and resell it to investors)
I Will leave The telegram contact of my personal pi vendor, if you are finding a legitimate one.
@Pi_vendor_247
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What website can I sell pi coins securely.DOT TECH
Currently there are no website or exchange that allow buying or selling of pi coins..
But you can still easily sell pi coins, by reselling it to exchanges/crypto whales interested in holding thousands of pi coins before the mainnet launch.
Who is a pi merchant?
A pi merchant is someone who buys pi coins from miners and resell to these crypto whales and holders of pi..
This is because pi network is not doing any pre-sale. The only way exchanges can get pi is by buying from miners and pi merchants stands in between the miners and the exchanges.
How can I sell my pi coins?
Selling pi coins is really easy, but first you need to migrate to mainnet wallet before you can do that. I will leave the telegram contact of my personal pi merchant to trade with.
Tele-gram.
@Pi_vendor_247
Falcon stands out as a top-tier P2P Invoice Discounting platform in India, bridging esteemed blue-chip companies and eager investors. Our goal is to transform the investment landscape in India by establishing a comprehensive destination for borrowers and investors with diverse profiles and needs, all while minimizing risk. What sets Falcon apart is the elimination of intermediaries such as commercial banks and depository institutions, allowing investors to enjoy higher yields.
Currently pi network is not tradable on binance or any other exchange because we are still in the enclosed mainnet.
Right now the only way to sell pi coins is by trading with a verified merchant.
What is a pi merchant?
A pi merchant is someone verified by pi network team and allowed to barter pi coins for goods and services.
Since pi network is not doing any pre-sale The only way exchanges like binance/huobi or crypto whales can get pi is by buying from miners. And a merchant stands in between the exchanges and the miners.
I will leave the telegram contact of my personal pi merchant. I and my friends has traded more than 6000pi coins successfully
Tele-gram
@Pi_vendor_247
how to sell pi coins effectively (from 50 - 100k pi)DOT TECH
Anywhere in the world, including Africa, America, and Europe, you can sell Pi Network Coins online and receive cash through online payment options.
Pi has not yet been launched on any exchange because we are currently using the confined Mainnet. The planned launch date for Pi is June 28, 2026.
Reselling to investors who want to hold until the mainnet launch in 2026 is currently the sole way to sell.
Consequently, right now. All you need to do is select the right pi network provider.
Who is a pi merchant?
An individual who buys coins from miners on the pi network and resells them to investors hoping to hang onto them until the mainnet is launched is known as a pi merchant.
debuts.
I'll provide you the Telegram username
@Pi_vendor_247
USDA Loans in California: A Comprehensive Overview.pptxmarketing367770
USDA Loans in California: A Comprehensive Overview
If you're dreaming of owning a home in California's rural or suburban areas, a USDA loan might be the perfect solution. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) offers these loans to help low-to-moderate-income individuals and families achieve homeownership.
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Location: The property must be located in a USDA-designated rural or suburban area. Many areas in California qualify.
Income Limits: Applicants must meet income guidelines, which vary by region and household size.
Primary Residence: The home must be used as the borrower's primary residence.
Application Process:
Find a USDA-Approved Lender: Not all lenders offer USDA loans, so it's essential to choose one approved by the USDA.
Pre-Qualification: Determine your eligibility and the amount you can borrow.
Property Search: Look for properties in eligible rural or suburban areas.
Loan Application: Submit your application, including financial and personal information.
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USDA loans are an excellent option for those looking to buy a home in California's rural and suburban areas. With no down payment and flexible requirements, these loans make homeownership more attainable for many families. Explore your eligibility today and take the first step toward owning your dream home.
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3. CASE Network Studies & Analyses No. 376 - Magdalena Rokicka - Gender Gap in the CIS…
The CASE Network is a group of economic and social research centers in Poland,
Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Belarus. Organizations in the network regularly
conduct joint research and advisory projects. The research covers a wide spectrum of
economic and social issues, including economic effects of the European integration process,
economic relations between the EU and CIS, monetary policy and euro-accession,
innovation and competitiveness, and labour markets and social policy. The network aims to
increase the range and quality of economic research and information available to policy-makers
and civil society, and takes an active role in on-going debates on how to meet the
economic challenges facing the EU, post-transition countries and the global economy.
The CASE network consists of:
• CASE – Center for Social and Economic Research, Warsaw, est. 1991,
www.case-research.eu
• CASE – Center for Social and Economic Research – Kyrgyzstan, est. 1998,
www.case.elcat.kg
• Center for Social and Economic Research - CASE Ukraine, est. 1999,
www.case-ukraine.kiev.ua
• CASE –Transcaucasus Center for Social and Economic Research, est. 2000,
www.case-transcaucasus.org.ge
• Foundation for Social and Economic Research CASE Moldova, est. 2003,
www.case.com.md
• CASE Belarus - Center for Social and Economic Research Belarus, est. 2007.
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4. CASE Network Studies & Analyses No. 376 - Magdalena Rokicka - Gender Gap in the CIS…
Contents
Abstract..................................................................................................................... 7
Introduction............................................................................................................... 8
1. Gender gap: Literature review............................................................................. 9
1.1. Main dimensions of the gender gap ............................................................. 9
1.2. Explaining the gender gap .......................................................................... 10
1.2.1 Social norms, cultural environment, and psychological differences........... 10
1.2.2 Level of development and trade liberalization ............................................ 11
1.3. Consequences of gender inequality........................................................... 12
1.4. Measuring the gender gap .......................................................................... 13
1.4.1 The UNDP approach .................................................................................. 13
1.4.2 The OECD approach .................................................................................. 14
1.4.3 The World Bank approach.......................................................................... 15
1.4.4 The World Economic Forum approach....................................................... 16
2. Previous studies on the gender gap in the CIS region.....................................17
2.1. Gender gap in transition.............................................................................. 17
2.2. Gender earnings gap in Russia and Ukraine............................................. 21
3. Results of data analysis......................................................................................23
3.1. Economic participation ............................................................................... 24
3.1.1 Labour force participation rate................................................................... 24
3.1.2 Unemployment .......................................................................................... 26
3.1.3 Income....................................................................................................... 29
3.2. Economic opportunity................................................................................. 31
3.2.1 Employment and sectoral changes ............................................................ 31
3.3. Political empowerment ................................................................................ 39
3.4. Educational attainment................................................................................ 42
3.5. Demography and health .............................................................................. 46
4. Summary and conclusions .................................................................................49
References ...............................................................................................................52
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5. CASE Network Studies & Analyses No. 376 - Magdalena Rokicka - Gender Gap in the CIS…
List of figures:
Figure 1: Female labour activity rates for selected countries, 1980-2004, percent .......26
Figure 2: Male labour activity rates for selected countries, 1980-2004, percent...........26
Figure 3: Unemployment rates for selected countries, by gender, 1995-2005, percent 27
Figure 4: Gender gap in earned income for selected countries, 1997-2004, female
earnings as percent of male earnings ....................................................................30
Figure 5: Employment in selected countries, by gender and by sector, 2004, percent 31
Figure 6: Female/male employment ratio in agriculture in selected CIS countries,
2000-2004 ...............................................................................................................33
Figure 7: Female/male employment ratio in industry in selected CIS countries,
2000-04 ......................................................................................................................34
Figure 8: Female/male employment ratio in services in selected CIS countries,
2000-04 ......................................................................................................................36
Figure 9: Gender pay ratios in selected countries, by sector, 1993-2000, average
female wage as percent of average male wage .....................................................38
Figure 10: Women in parliament in selected countries, 1997-2004, percent of total
seats occupied in lower or single house ...............................................................41
Figure 11: Gender parity in primary school gross enrolment in selected countries,
1991 and 2003, percent ............................................................................................43
Figure 12: Gender parity in tertiary school gross enrolment in selected countries,
1991 and 2003, percent ............................................................................................44
Figure 13: Differences between life expectancies for females and males in selected
countries, 2003, years ..............................................................................................48
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6. CASE Network Studies & Analyses No. 376 - Magdalena Rokicka - Gender Gap in the CIS…
List of abbreviations:
ADB Asian Development Bank
CA Central Asia
CEE Central and Eastern Europe
CIS Commonwealth of Independent States
ENEPO Eastern Neighbourhood : Economic Potential and Future Development
ENP European Neighbourhood Policy
EU European Union
EU-12 Countries that are members of the European Union since 2004
EU-15 Countries in the European Union prior to May 2004
GDI Gender Related Development Index
GDP Gross domestic product
GEM Gender Empowerment Measure
GID Gender, Institutions, and Development database
HDI Human Development Index
HDR Human Development Report
ILO International Labour Organization
LFS Labour Force Survey
LOC Locus of control
NGO Non governmental organisation
NMS New Member States (EU)
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
RLMS Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey
ULMS Ukrainian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNECE United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
UNIFEM United Nations Development Fund for Women
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
WB World Bank
WDI World Development Indicators (WB)
WEF World Economic Forum
WHO World Health Organisation
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7. CASE Network Studies & Analyses No. 376 - Magdalena Rokicka - Gender Gap in the CIS…
Magdalena Rokicka is a researcher at CASE (Warsaw). A graduate of University of Warsaw
(2001, M.A. in International Economics), she has participated as a researcher in several
international projects which included studying consequences of industrial restructuring in
Russia and Ukraine, and non-tariff barriers for Ukrainian exports to the EU. Magda’s
research interests are focused on applied economics, social issues, gender inequalities, and
labour market economics.
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8. CASE Network Studies & Analyses No. 376 - Magdalena Rokicka - Gender Gap in the CIS…
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to examine the issues of gender disparities in the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS) region, with a special focus given to countries covered by the
European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP)1. The analysis is conducted in several dimensions:
labour participation, economic opportunity, political empowerment, educational attainment,
and health and demography2.
Beside the comparative study of “in region differentials” done for the CIS, I analyze the
trends in gender disparities in comparison to: EU-12 and EU-15, using data for the period
1985-2005.
The study confirms the existence of slightly different paths in which gender disparities have
evolved over time. While in EU-15 women participation in labour market, their remuneration,
and position in public life have significantly increased, in majority of the CIS countries a
gradual decrease of female labour activity was reported. In addition female representation in
politics and public life has shrunken after and during the transition period. On the other hand
in such fields as secondary and tertiary education attainment, health, and demography male
population in the CIS region has became more disadvantaged, which also leads to enlarging
gender gap.
1 The European Neighborhood Policy applies to following CIS members: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia,
Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia (with certain restrictions) and Ukraine.
2 This is an approach applied by World Economic Forum in the report “Global Gender Gap”.
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9. CASE Network Studies & Analyses No. 376 - Magdalena Rokicka - Gender Gap in the CIS…
Introduction
Gender issues have been given little attention in the CIS region. Even if discussed,
they are not approached in a comprehensive way. As a result, gender topics are raised
mostly as a consequence of demographers’ alerts of dramatic decreases in fertility rates, or
in the context of a significant gap in life expectancy figures between women and men.
The CIS region shared a common historical past by having been a part of the USSR.
Female labour participation was high in the majority of Soviet republics. Women were also
represented in the governmental and party structures, although rather rarely in the highest
level. They had equal access to education and were not subject to large earnings disparities.
Although those facts indicated formal gender equality, they have not been present during and
after the transition. Different paths have been followed by men and women. The economic
reforms or their lack have affected men and women in different ways. As a result no single
picture of the region in terms of gender equality applies any longer.
This paper is organized as follows. Part I, the literature review, develops a framework
that identifies the main dimension of gender inequality, highlights the links between the
increase in gender equality and sustainable development and growth. Moreover, it provides
an overview of main measures of the gender gap used in international comparisons. Part II
presents a gender analysis for the CIS region, while Part III is an analytical study of the
gender gap in the CIS countries, especially those which are covered by the European
Neighbourhood Policy (ENP).
This study was prepared as a contribution to the project on EU Eastern
Neighbourhood: Economic Potential and Future Development (ENEPO) financed under EU
FP6. The author is grateful for the valuable comments received from Janusz Szyrmer, Dr.
Irina Sinitsina, the coordinator of Workpackage 1: Development gap between the CIS and
EU countries, and Professor Marek Dąbrowski, the coordinator of the project.
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10. CASE Network Studies & Analyses No. 376 - Magdalena Rokicka - Gender Gap in the CIS…
1. Gender gap: Literature review
It is not the aim of this study to review all available literature on the gender issues. Therefore
I focus on the most recent policy research, and particularly on those studies that can be
useful in an analysis of gender inequality in the CIS region, and in some comparisons with
the EU countries.
There is no homogeneous definition of the term “gender gap”. This expression was first
used in relation to differences in women and men voting preferences observed in USA in
seventies. Since than it was extended to other areas. In my report the term is mainly used in
relation to gender disparity in economic context. Throughout this paper the terms “gender
inequality”, “gender gap” and “gender disparity “ will be used interchangeably and treated as
synonyms in the meaning of disproportionate differences between sexes, as one of the main
aims of this study is to present existing disparities without subjective judgments.
After having reviewed a vast array of literature on the subject, I identified several areas
for the analysis of gender inequality:
• Main dimensions
• Causes
• Effects on sustainable development and economic growth, and
• Measuring methods
1.1. Main dimensions of the gender gap
There is a consensus that gender equality should be understood as the equality of
chances and opportunities. Therefore gender inequality is basically analyzed as a disparity in
women’s and men’s conditions under which they participate in and benefit from development.
Gender disparity derives from biological and psychological differences between men and
women although social expectations, cultural and legal conditions also contribute to a gender
gap. All societies experience gender asymmetries, to various degrees. Although a lot of
efforts have been made to eliminate gender inequality, no country has fully succeeded in this
endeavour. Nordic countries, followed by New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom have
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11. CASE Network Studies & Analyses No. 376 - Magdalena Rokicka - Gender Gap in the CIS…
reduced this gap considerably, and removed the majority of obstacles, while significant
gender inequalities still exists in such countries as Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey.
Most frequently, studies on the gender gap are conducted in the context of:
• Schooling and access to education (disparities tend to be greater among the poor)
• Access to health care (mothers’ health has consequences for the health of other family
members)
• Access to labour market (fair and equal employment opportunities can enhance labour
productivity and lead to faster economic growth)
• Remuneration for work (only part of a wage gap can be explained by gender
differences in education, work experience, or job characteristics; even when controlling
for them we still find gender differences in wages), and
• Legal and political rights (often accompanied by social norms and customs)
Although some progress has been achieved in combating inequalities, the pace of change
was not the same in different regions. While most African countries are still trying to provide
schooling and education at equal levels for both boys and girls, this is not any more issues of
concern in European countries, in which gender disparity are mostly manifested in the area
of remuneration for equal work. It seems that this aspect of the gender gap is the most
difficult to overcome, as a lot of additional factors other than gender have an influence on the
level of salary, for example: sector of activity, experience, level of responsibility, etc.
1.2. Explaining the gender gap
1.2.1 Social norms, cultural environment, and psychological differences
Important impediments to gender equality are social norms, laws, and the cultural
environment (Engendering Development, 2001). To achieve gender equality, appropriate
changes should occur in legal and regulatory frameworks, markets, and organizations. An
elementary step is to establish equal basic rights, especially in family law, protection against
gender-related violence, property and political rights. These factors, which are often hardly
measurable, determine the roles that women and men play in the family, the community and
the society and they vary across countries, even those with similar levels of development.
Verheul et al. (2005) examined female and male differences in entrepreneurship.
Considered a driving force of economic development, female entrepreneurship still lags
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12. CASE Network Studies & Analyses No. 376 - Magdalena Rokicka - Gender Gap in the CIS…
behind that of male’s although there are substantial variations between countries. Using data
from 29 countries, it was demonstrated that in India, Argentina, and Brazil, female
entrepreneurship rates are high, while in Japan, Belgium or Russia they are relatively low.
According to Verheul et al. (2005), male and female patterns of entrepreneurship differ not
only in numbers but also in their structure: the two groups prefer different sectors, produce
different products, and have different market targets and forms of organization.
Linz and Semykina (2005), using a data set for 2,600 Russian employees, found that
a gender earning gap could be partly explained by differences in personality. They measured
two factors: 1) locus of control (LOC)3 which refers to a perception of one’s behaviour and its
consequences, and 2) challenge-affiliation (C-A)4 to analyze their distribution between
gender and their impact on wage differential. Men were more likely to exhibit an internal
locus of control and a need for challenge; therefore, their remuneration was higher.
Moreover, Linz and Semykina (2005) claimed that earnings of women are more affected by
their personalities than men’s earnings.
Among other frequently mentioned explanations of a gender gap, especially in
relation to earnings, the following factors are mentioned apart from discrimination: ability,
educational endowment, and employment segregation.
1.2.2 Level of development and trade liberalization
In general, development and economic growth are believed to narrow the gender gap,
as the wage gap between women and men tends to be wider in less developed countries
than in industrially advanced economies. These common believes are supported by empirical
analysis, which apply broader definition of gender gap, not limited to the wage disparity.
According to Zhang et al. (1999) perpetual growth has a crucial role in reducing gender gaps
in terms of human capital ratio between men and women. On the other hand the direction of
causality is not obvious; Klasen (1999) claimed that greater gender equality in education
improves human capital and positively determine the economic growth (more in I.3).
Schultz (2006) argued that liberalization of trade policy is linked to the advancement
of economic status of women, and that export-led growth in middle- and low-income
3 Individuals who are characterized by external LOC believe that the results of their activities are a function of
luck, fate and external factors beyond their control. Employees with internal LOC who rely on their own actions
are in general more motivated and productive.
4 Challenge is associated with achieving success, and affiliation is more connected with maintaining good and
friendly relationships.
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13. CASE Network Studies & Analyses No. 376 - Magdalena Rokicka - Gender Gap in the CIS…
countries is associated with improvement in women’s employment opportunities. At the same
time, he added that natural resource exports appear to reduce equalization of investment in
schooling and health between men and women. His cross-country empirical studies show
that liberalization of trade is associated with the growth of female educational enrolment and
with an increase in female life expectation.
Slightly different view is expressed by Parpart (2002), specialist in African social
issues and labour, who maintains that increase of income or economic development within
society with patriarchal institutions will not necessarily lead to gender equality, as cultural
factors and social institutions are the most important determinants of women’s participation in
economic activity.
1.3. Consequences of gender inequality
Consequences of gender inequality in the context of trade performance were studied
by Busse and Spielman (2005). On the basis of an empirical analysis of 92 countries, and
using a standard Heckscher-Ohlin model5, the hypothesis that the gender gap affects the
competitiveness of countries by influencing trade flows was tested. Three dimensions were
taken into account, namely differences in wages, labour activity, and access to education.
The results indicated that countries with a larger gender wage gap were exporting more
labour-intensive goods than the others, although the gender gaps in labour activity and
educational attainment were negatively associated with countries’ comparative advantages in
labour-intensive goods. These results provoked a discussion of the role of and the need for
fundamental labour standards, including those ensuring equal wages for males and females.
The negative consequences of the gender gap for long term growth were also studied
by Klasen (2002). Using cross-country and panel regressions, he analyzed how gender
inequality in education affects long-term economic growth. The results suggested that gender
inequality in education directly influenced economic growth by lowering the average level of
human capital. He also found that growth is indirectly affected by the impact of gender
inequality on investment and population growth. He claimed that around 0.4 percentage
points of differences in annual per capita growth rates between East Asia and Sub-Saharan
5 Heckscher-Ohlin model (H-O model) is a general equilibrium model of international trade. It builds on David
Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage by predicting patterns of commerce and production based on the
factor endowments of a trading region. The model essentially implies that countries will export products that utilize
their abundant and cheap factors of production and import products that utilize the countries' scarce factors.
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14. CASE Network Studies & Analyses No. 376 - Magdalena Rokicka - Gender Gap in the CIS…
Africa can be accounted for by differences in gender gaps in education between these
regions.
Similar views are presented by Morrison et al. (2007). Their paper summarized the
evidence from studies on the relationship between gender equality and poverty reduction and
growth at the macro level. They pointed out that gender equality affects economic growth
through various channels:
• Via increased quality of human capital, which is reflected in the increased
productivity of labour and other complementary inputs to the production
process
• Via increased efficiency in the allocation of different inputs; obstacles for
women’s employment in certain occupations may result in allocative
inefficiency; if other inputs like land and capital are allocated on a non-economic
(e.g. cultural) basis, a similar inefficiency occurs; and
• Via differential marginal propensities to save; although it is questionable they
based their assumption on empirical evidence provided by Seguino and Floro
(2003)6 that women may have greater incentives to save than men, reflecting
women’s role as “principal home builders” and women’s intergenerational
altruism
1.4. Measuring the gender gap
There are several approaches to measuring the gender disparities across countries.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank (WB), the
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the World
Economic Forum (WEF) have proposed their own indices to quantify the degree of gender
bias.
1.4.1 The UNDP approach
To measure gender inequality across countries, the UNDP composed two indicators,
which were incorporated into the Human Development Report for the first time in 1995.
These are:
• GDI - Gender Related Development Index, and
6 Seguino and Floro (2003), in a cross-country panel study of industrialized countries, found that an increase in
women’s wage value relative to men’s wage value was associated with an increase in the domestic savings rate.
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15. CASE Network Studies & Analyses No. 376 - Magdalena Rokicka - Gender Gap in the CIS…
• GEM - Gender Empowerment Measure
GDI is the unweighted average of three indices: equally distributed life expectancy
index, equally distributed education index and equally distributed income index7. Equally
distributed index is calculated as the harmonic mean of the female and male respective
indices. It rewards gender equality and penalizes inequality; it ranks lower country with larger
inter-group differences in each of the component. (HDR, 1995).
This approach has been criticized because of the fact that the harmonic means
approach accounts for all gender inequality, weighing all differences between female and
male populations. As a consequence, a country where females achieve a higher level of
longevity and of education has a lower GDI score than a country with equal scores both for
men and women; further on, an advantageous position of women in a country in one
dimension can not compensate for deprivation in another dimension (Oudhof, 2000).
GEM is an index based on income share, professional opportunity, and participation in
economic decision making and is meant to quantify the economic and political position of
women relative to men in a given society. It identifies the percentage of women occupying
administrative and managerial posts, working in professional and technical occupations and
holding seats in parliaments, as well as the level of women’s earned income relative to men’s
earned income. The scale of GEM values ranges from the worst score of zero to the best
score of one.
Some argue that this index, by focusing on women with jobs and those who are active
in politics, leaves out the majority of the female population who, in many countries, suffer
from high illiteracy, high fertility, and high maternal mortality. An additional concern is that
GEM uses absolute values, which could lead to an over-weighted income variable, hence to
an underestimation of gender inequality in richer countries.
1.4.2 The OECD approach
In 2006, the OECD launched a new project with the purpose of constructing the
Gender, Institutions, and Development (GID) database which draws on an existing
compilation of data from different international sources (UNDP, the World Bank, and the
7 It is estimated earned income at purchasing power parity US$, based on GDP and
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16. CASE Network Studies & Analyses No. 376 - Magdalena Rokicka - Gender Gap in the CIS…
United Nations) and supplements them with additional information on social institutions.
Information on cultural and traditional practices that impact women’s economic development
is coded so as to measure the level of discrimination. GID is intended to describe not only
the extent of the gender gap, but also the reasons for its occurrence. It follows a hypothesis
that the economic role of women depends on various social institutions, women’s access to
resources, and the overall income of the country. While interactions between these factors
are universal, the directions of impact and their intensity vary. Social institutions, such as
family code, civil liberties, ownership rights, and physical integrity, not only directly influence
the economic role of women, but also affect women’s access to resources and participation
in a country’s economic development.
Given the GID’s focus on qualitative and difficult to measure information, many
indicators are in the form of ratios rather than absolute values. For measuring the social
institutions variable (mostly of qualitative nature) the 0 (better) –1 (worse) scale is used. An
electronic GID database, maintained by the OECD, presents wide-ranging comparative data
on gender inequality for 161 countries. Currently only the most recent data is available, and
no historical records are included.
1.4.3 The World Bank approach
The World Bank’s approach to measure the gender gap is essentially based on
analysis of the extensive sets of gender-disaggregated data and gender-sensitive indicators
on countries. In the majority of the World Bank’s reports, female-to-male ratios are used as
measures of gender equality in education, health and income. It is assumed that the ratios
better capture gender inequality – especially if the comparison is made between countries
with substantially different absolute levels of indicators. In relation to gender rights, an index
of gender rights is applied. It is calculated as an average of three indices: equality of social
and economic rights, equality of political and legal rights, and equality of rights in marriage
and divorce proceedings; the three indices are defined on a scale from 1 to 4 (4 being the
highest degree of equality).
An electronic database, GenderStats, maintained by the World Bank's Development
Data Group, offers statistical and other data in modules on several subjects ranging from
health and education to political participation and poverty. Data sources for GenderStats
include national statistics, United Nations databases, and World Bank-conducted or funded
surveys. Historical and recent data are provided when available.
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17. CASE Network Studies & Analyses No. 376 - Magdalena Rokicka - Gender Gap in the CIS…
1.4.4 The World Economic Forum approach
In 2005 a paper published by the WEF presented a new approach to measure the size
of the gender gap (Lopez-Claros and Zahidi, 2005). Using available international data, mainly
from the World Bank and UNDP, and supplementing them with the results of the WEF
Executive Opinion Survey, WEF proposed to analyze gender inequality in five dimensions:
• Economic participation, which concerns not only the actual number of women
participating in the labour market, but also their remuneration
• Economic opportunity, which attempts to capture the quality of women’s economic
involvement, assessing the level of “horizontal occupational segregation” and the level
of the “social and economic penalty” for childbirth and child care
• Political empowerment, which measures women’s representation in decision-making
bodies and their participation in policy formulation
• Educational attainment, seen as the most fundamental prerequisite of equality
• Health and well-being, designed to measure the differences between women and men
in their access to sufficient nutrition, healthcare, and safety.
Since the goal of the WEF is to provide for cross-country comparisons, the dimensions
of gender inequality listed above are ranked in each of the dimension for particular countries,
and then presented in the quantitative order.
Although this approach does not take into account all the issues that affect women, and
is limited by the data availability, it provides valuable comparisons across countries in
economic, political, health and educational realms, and is used in the current study as a
basic tool for assessing the gender gap in the CIS region.
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18. CASE Network Studies & Analyses No. 376 - Magdalena Rokicka - Gender Gap in the CIS…
2. Previous studies on the gender gap in the CIS region
Several empirical analysis of the gender gap in the different CIS countries have been
conducted recently. The major limitation for further studies is a lack of appropriate data
sources, while the issues itself is currently acknowledged. Most recent research focus on the
transition period and its impact on women’s economic and social position. Some of them
address gender equality in the context of wages and earnings gaps, especially in Russia and
Ukraine. As concerns other CIS members, comprehensive gender assessments covering
four central Asian Republics were recently completed as part of a technical assistance
project of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). A country gender profile of Georgia, Moldova,
Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan was prepared as part of a World Bank
ongoing project. References to the CIS countries are also present in the literature on the
gender gap in transition countries, although studies on the Central and Eastern European
(CEE) countries are more widespread. Some partial analyses of the CIS region might be also
found in international sources which contain the global overview of the gender gap.
Based on the above-mentioned records, we identified the main findings and obtained
a fractional but relatively fresh image of gender inequality in the CIS region.
2.1. Gender gap in transition
A comprehensive analysis of the manner in which the transition has affected men and
women in Europe and Central Asia (CA) was conducted under a World Bank initiative by
Paci (2002). The study covers 27 countries8 and refers to the period of 1989-2000. Given the
high degree of gender formal equality in the previous period, the analysis focuses on the
extent of changes rather than on absolute levels of indicators.
The analysis revealed that the process of transformation affected not only the
structure of the economy and living standards, but also influenced men and women in a
different way. Although in the course of transition unemployment increased, employment in
the public sphere declined, and an informal labour market developed, there was no evidence
that the situation of women deteriorated as compared to the overall situation. In none of the
countries analyzed did the ratio of female to male activity rate decline; only in a few countries
8 Former USSR, CEE and former Yugoslavia.
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women’s unemployment was higher than that of men while the share of women in total
employment remained unchanged. Yet, the female position weakened in earnings and formal
employment. During transition, earning inequalities grew especially rapidly in Ukraine and
Russia which provided the most negative impact on women’s wages9. Moreover there is
evidence that women are more often employed informally or hold part-time jobs. However, in
the future, a growing earnings gap may result in a reduction in female work-related benefits,
especially pensions. Additionally, the decrease of social benefits, such as state subsidies for
nurseries and kindergartens, forced women to spend more time on maintaining diverse
household chores and taking care of children and elderly family members.
The evaluation of the impact of poverty on the female population is mixed. In Georgia
and Tajikistan, female headed households seem more likely to plunge into poverty. On the
other hand, in the majority of countries, this correlation exists mainly in such specific groups
as single parents or elderly people.
As concerns the access to basic primary education, gender differences are rather
undetectable. Almost the same percentages of girls and boys have access to school. The
changes arise when comparing secondary and higher education. In Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan, girls are at a growing disadvantage in secondary education, while in the majority
of other countries, a “reverse gender gap” was revealed, with relatively lower boys’ enrolment
and school attainment. In higher education, girls’ advantage is observed across most of the
region, although a falling rate of female enrolment is observed in Central Asia.
A distinctive feature of transition in the CIS region called “adverse development” is
linked to the deterioration of health and lowering life expectancy. Male life expectancy
dropped in 80% of analysed countries, while and female life expectancy declined in more
than half of the countries under this study. The drastic decline was experienced by Russia,
Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States and Kazakhstan, where average life expectancy declined
by 4.5 years from 1989 to 1995. In Russia, male life expectancy drops by 7.3 years to the
level of 57.6 years in between 1987 in 1994. The major causes of mortality were:
cardiovascular diseases, accidents and violence. As the report claims, the attitudes toward
economic instability, poverty and unemployment were often associated with alcohol abuse,
stress and poor life style.
9 This issue was analysed in a number of studies some of which are discussed in the subsequent part of this
document.
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When analyzing reproductive health indicators, which are the main characteristics of
women’s health status, it was observed that some of them have improved: maternal mortality
and abortion rates fell while the prevalence of contraceptives increased. However, in other
areas some stagnation or deterioration took place: the number of women provided with
prenatal care declined, while the number of pregnant women with anaemia increased.
The report refers also to sensitive issues such as human trafficking, violence and
juvenile crime. The situation in all these areas worsened, and in many cases has directly
affected women.
The World Bank report summary provides us with the following conclusions:
• The impact of transition varied among countries and no regular patterns in gender
inequality could be identified.
• Market deregulation and the process of privatization were not equally beneficial for
both genders. In the majority of the CIS countries state property was privatized by the
governmental or managerial hierarchy. Since women’s positions in the top level
management had been infrequent, in most cases women were not able to acquire
larger assets (also women lacked capital to afford purchasing the privatized property).
• In Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, according to most indicators, the relative position of
women worsened.
• In all CIS countries there was a significant gender gap in earnings; however the
differences between monthly earnings were shrinking. Although some of the earning
disparities might be explained by differences in human capital endowment and
differences in job characteristics, part of this gap remained unexplained and might be
associated with gender discrimination. The highest proportion of the unexplained
earnings gap was observed in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, followed by Russia.
• In the whole region the burden of female household tasks increased leading to “time
poverty”10, which has implications for women’s health and earnings.11
10 As stated in Bardasi and Wodon (2006), time poverty can be understood as the fact that some individuals do
not have enough time for resting and leisure because of long working times both in the labour market and/or
domestic chores. Time is a limited resource. More time spent on working in paid or unpaid activities means less
leisure, thus greater ‘time poverty’.
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• In several countries, the process of economic restructuring resulted in a decline in
men’s health status and their life expectancy, while the female population also
experienced a fall in life duration, although the changes were not equally dramatic. An
extraordinary increase in mortality coincided with economic instability, growing poverty,
and rising unemployment, which were often singled out as the main reasons for
hazardous behaviour and premature death.
Gender related issues in Central Asia were given special attention in the ADB’s
“Regional Synthesis Report” (Gender Assessment, 2006). While the contraction of a
generous Soviet social security and distribution system affected both males and females, the
changes in the situation of women in the four countries: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz
Republic, and Tajikistan were additionally brought about by the process of building their
national identities, based on traditional cultural and religious values
While analyzing official macro level data, the female situation in CA was relatively
advantageous in comparison to other countries at similar levels of development, with similar
levels of Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDP/capita). Two indicators used by the UNDP
to assess effects of economic growth, the Human Development Index and the Gender
Related Development Index, were at comparable levels, which implies a relatively low
gender gap. However the Labour Force Survey (LFS) analyses and field studies present a
different picture of women’s situation in those countries.
The report claims that women’s opportunities in all analyzed cases declined, although
the scale of changes varied depending on the local conditions. In all four countries female
unemployment rates were higher than those of men; moreover, women were seeking jobs
during longer periods of time. Increasing numbers of women leaving the formal labour market
were reported in all four republics. As a result, women tended to enter the informal economy
or to seek insecure part-time jobs. Furthermore the report demonstrates that women’s skills
were inappropriate for the emerging market. Women were predominantly employed in such
sectors as health services, education, administration, and the textile industry, which
underwent budget cuts during the transition. Moreover, vertical segregation resulted in a
wage gap and, despite their generally higher competence and education level; women were
rarely represented in management positions.
11 It might be argued that a technological development, an easier access to different household durables, and
availability of goods and products have actually contribute to increased of women free time, decreasing the real
time poverty.
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Women’s access to economic resources such as credit, capital, and land, was limited
and there was growing evidence that women were forced to stay in low profit sectors
because they lacked capital for investments. This discriminatory gender segregation
occurred despite the fact that women, according to the findings of some nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) operating in Tajikistan, appeared to be less risk averse than men in
business decision-making, repaid loans more frequently, and took a longer time perspective
in business planning.
In all four countries the primary school enrolment and attendance are balanced by
gender, whereas at the secondary and tertiary level a “reverse gender gap” was observed,
with more females than males enrolled.
According to the ADB report, an important aspect is the declining role of women in
public decision making and in the political process. Reduced personal security, mainly due to
increasing female trafficking and sexual harassment in the work place, was also pointed out
as forms of gender discrimination.
2.2. Gender earnings gap in Russia and Ukraine
The earnings gap in Russia was discussed by Dohmen et al. (2008), Linz and
Semykina (2005), and also examined by Gerry and Kim Byung-Yeon (2001), Reilly (1999),
and Silverman and Yanovitch (1997), while gender differences in occupational mobility and
segregation in Russia was the main focus of the research by Maltseva (2005). Ukraine’s
comprehensive studies were conducted by the UNDP and are presented in the Gender
Issues (2003). The earnings gap in Ukraine was also reported by Ganguli and Terrel (2005)
and Braithwaite et al. (2002).
According to estimates for Russia by Silverman and Yanovitch (1997), in 1994,
women earned only 68 percent of what was earned by men; furthermore, women constituted
the majority of the working poor. Reilly (1999) reported that in the period from 1992 to 1996,
the monthly wage gap in Russia was around 38 percent and remained relatively invariable
during this period.
Gerry and Kim Byung-Yeon (2001) found that while from 1994 - 1996, the labour
market experienced stabilization, the Russian financial crisis had a significant impact on
wage differentials and the burden of the crisis increased women discrimination in the labour
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market. During the given period, 88 to 96 percent of women experienced a disadvantage in
earnings (measured by average real hourly wages), and the close relationship between
gender pay gap and economic situation was observed. To measure the gender wage gap,
they applied the Oaxaca-Ransom decomposition using data for 1994-98. Majority of studies
analyse wage differences by a decomposition of earning differentials into two components:
endowment (which describe workers' productivity-related characteristics: education,
experience, etc.) and unexplained component (which is often associated with discrimination).
The Oaxaca-Ransom decomposition is an extension of the method mentioned above, but
additionally it incorporates the occupational distribution into the earnings estimation.
Further estimation, based on additional variables (age, educational attainment, and
type of occupation) revealed that less-educated women (those with vocational training or up
to secondary education) faced greater disadvantages in terms of wage distribution.
Furthermore, young women aged 18-34 were most exposed to the negative economic shock
of 1998. A significant variation of gender pay gap was found between regions, which
confirms the regional segregation of the labour market in Russia. Women in Moscow, Sankt
Petersburg, and the Ural region experienced the largest earning disadvantage. In-kind
payments were provided as some compensation mechanism for reducing the earnings gap,
especially among those with the lowest wages.
Some of the differences in remuneration between genders might be explained by
sectoral segregation. As revealed by Maltseva (2005), the occupational structure of
employment in Russia was vastly segregated: among 27 occupational groups only 6 or 7
could be called integrated, while the majority of occupations were dominated either by men
or by women. She further highlighted that between 1985 and 2002, women represented 90
percent of life science and health associate professionals, office clerks, customer service
clerks, and teaching associate professionals. On the other hand women were virtually
nonexistent in such occupations as metal, machinery and related trades workers, as well as
drivers and operators of mobile plants. She found that from 1985 to 1994 the occupational
segregation level grew, however the decrease of the segregation level was observed in
1994-2002, with continuing entrance of men into "female" occupations (e.g. clerks, sales and
services occupations). Simultaneously in this period there was an evident decrease in the
overall employment level in some gender-dominated occupations (e.g. industrial workers).
The differential in wages between men and women could also be explained by
vertical segregation: different levels of professional hierarchy with predominantly male or
female labour. According to the Ukrainian Population survey of 2002, the female share in top
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management positions in industry was 20.2 percent. The highest share of women managers
was found in the non-productive sectors (Gender issues, 2003). Despite a high
representation of women in state administration, they were over-represented in the support
staff category, while their participation at decision-making levels and in executive power
structures in Ukraine was marginal, i.e. less than 10 percent (Ukraine: Civil Service 1997).
This finding was also supported by Ganguli and Terrell (2005). Using the Ukrainian
Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (ULMS), they reported that the gender pay gap in Ukraine is
higher in the top half of the earnings distribution, and a glass ceiling was observed in three of
the analysed years: 1986, 1991, and 2003. It was also revealed that the glass ceiling was
lower in the public sector than in the private sector.
3. Results of data analysis
The aim of this section is to investigate the existence of the gender gap in the CIS
countries, especially those which are covered by ENP. While analyzing those issues I intend
to compare the CIS region with the situation in the EU countries - both the ‘old’ members
(EU-15), and New Member States (EU-12). I presume that the common historical
background of CEE countries and CIS countries may result in similar findings in the area of
gender inequality. However, more than 15 years of CEE transformation as well as the EU
accession have had a significant impact on the socio-economic situation in this region, so the
most recent findings for the two groups may vary.
I attempt not just to find out what the disparities are, but more importantly, why they
exist and what measures may help eliminate them, especially in the context of ENP. The
study covers the period of 1985-2004. To ensure that I obtain relatively comparable and
consistent information, I use data from international sources, mainly from the World Bank,
UNDP and the International Labour Organization (ILO) databases. I adopt the approach of
Lopez-Claros and Zahidi, based mainly on the findings of the United Nations Development
Fund for Women (UNIFEM), who measured the gender gap in five crucial areas:
• economic participation
• economic opportunity
• political empowerment
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• educational attainment, and
• health and demography
This study focus mainly on economic participation and opportunity so as to reflect ENEPO
research objectives.
3.1. Economic participation
The term “economic participation” indicates the presence of women in the workforce,
their remunerations and level of unemployment.
3.1.1 Labour force participation rate12
Although the female population is greater than the male population, female labour
market participation, measured as those who have a job or are looking for a job, is smaller.
This is a global trend, which is explained by the traditional division of labour and the
responsibility of women to maintain diverse household chores, maternity and childcare.
When looking at the proportion of female labour force activity, we could easily distinguish two
opposite trends: one represents the situation in the EU-15, and the second one the situation
in the EU-12 and the other transition countries.
In 1985, the female labour force participation rates in the CIS were very high, ranging
between 75 percent (Moldova and Russia) and 65 percent of the working age population
(Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan); a similar situation was typical for CEE countries, including Bulgaria,
and Romania, and to a smaller extent for the former Yugoslavia. At the same time, average
activity rates in the EU-15 varied between 39 percent in Ireland and 80 percent in Sweden
with the mean value of 51 percent. Since this time, women’s activity rates have dropped in
EU-12 and the CIS but have increased in EU-15.
Glancing at the figures mentioned above, it seems that the economic participation of
women declined in the whole the CIS region. However, we can not make this conclusion
without first observing the trends in the male labour force activity in the given period, in which
a more homogeneous trend is noticeable. In all observed geographical subgroups, the male
12 We used data from the WDI database. The labor force participation rate is the proportion of the population
aged 15–64 that is economically active, i.e., all people who supply labor for the production of goods and services
during a specified period. The labor force participation rates are derived from the ILO database (Estimates and
Projections of the Economically Active Population, 1980–2020, fifth edition). The ILO publishes estimates of the
economically active population in its Yearbook of Labour Statistics.
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labour force activity between 1985 and 2004 declined but the intensity of those changes
varied, with the largest decline observed in the CIS and CEE countries.
This common shift may reflect global socio-demographic changes common for
Europe and Central Asia: a longer period of education, a delay in the moment of entering the
labour market, and a reduced male labour force participation rate in the youngest age group
(the cohort of 15-25 year olds). Scarce data confirm this hypothesis although in some CIS
countries as well as CEE countries, the decline was also observed in other age categories,
which reflected a transformation-related disruption in the labour market.
One of the most distinctive features of communist development was the ideologically
inspired integration of women into the labour force. Government funded social services and
protection schemes released women, to some extent, from many household responsibilities
such as child care, so they could enter the labour market relatively easily, without bearing
large additional costs, although in many cases this employment was compulsory. Special
privileges, like shorter working hours for mothers with young children, a lower retirement age,
and other social benefits, as well as a relatively equal system of remuneration encouraged
women to enter the labour market. This policy also resulted in changes in the perception of
the female role in society. Women were considered lawful workers, and although they were
concentrated in specific sectors, they were provided with the possibility to develop their
professional careers.
The collapse of the centrally planned economy resulted in a temporary economic
decline, especially in the social protection net, which could explain the partial exit of women
from the labour force in the CIS. Many women’s exit from the labour force was permanent,
especially those with the lowest earnings, as their remuneration did not provide them with an
appropriate premium for paid child care. As for the other factors which caused the outflow of
the labour force, they similarly affected both genders. Some of these changes, which were
characteristic of the transition period, may be explained by:
• An increase in informal labour market activity
• Early retirement schemes and disability benefits, and
• Passive unemployment (people who have ceased active job-seeking)
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Figure 1: Female labour activity rates for
selected countries, 1980-2004, percent
Figure 2: Male labour activity rates for
selected countries, 1980-2004, percent
Source: Own calculations based on the World Development Indicators (WDI) database
It should also be noted that the CIS region is not homogenous in respect to gender
participation in the labour market. The differences between the rates of labour activity across
the CIS are significant. Women’s labour activity ranged from about 70 percent of the rate of
men in Georgia to 91 percent in Belarus and Kazakhstan in 2004. We found out that the
gender gap was declining over time in the majority of the CIS members, although in Ukraine,
Georgia and Kyrgyzstan the gap tended to grow wider. The same trends were observed in
Bulgaria and Romania, while in the EU-15 female labour activity increased, reducing the
gender gap. Unfortunately, the narrowing of gender discrepancies in the CIS was not an
effect of the growth of the female participation in the labour market (as it was the case in EU-
15) but resulted in a decline in male labour activity.
3.1.2 Unemployment13
Market transformation has led to unemployment and the reorganization of production
in most of the CIS region; however changes in unemployment rates varied across countries.
As argued by Boeri and Terrell (2002), the CIS region and the CEE countries experienced
two different paths of transformation. While in the CEE countries the first response of the
companies for economic problems was a reduction of employment, in most CIS countries
13 We used data from the UNECE Statistical Division Database. The unemployment rate represents unemployed
persons as a percentage of the civilian labour force (persons employed plus those actively seeking jobs).
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the labour force was kept in place but real wages decreased. This resulted in lower
unemployment figures in the CIS compared to other transition countries. Nevertheless the
lack of relevant data available for all CIS countries makes the analysis complicated. Based
on the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) sources, we can observe
that between 1995 and 2000 the number of unemployed in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine,
and Russia was rising, whereas since 2000 a slight decline in the unemployment rate has
been noticed in these countries. According to official statistics, in 2005, in the CIS the highest
unemployment rate was observed in Georgia (13.8 percent), while Moldova recorded only
7.3 percent.
However, the reliability of this data is questionable. The official data for the CA
countries seems to be underestimated, showing only registered unemployment, which
covered only a part of the people seeking jobs. For example, in Azerbaijan 1.4 percent of the
labour force was registered as unemployed (in 2005, UNECE), while study of the Asian
Development Bank (Gender Assessment …, 2006) estimated the rate of unemployment in
Azerbaijan in 2006 at 40,5 percent for women and 16,4 percent for men.
Figure 3: Unemployment rates for selected countries, by gender, 1995-2005, percent
Sources: UNECE Statistical Division Database
There is no single trend in unemployment in the CIS area. In Armenia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan unemployment is higher among women, but the gender
disparities reduced between 1995 and 2005. Higher female unemployment compared to
male was also a common feature of the EU-15 countries: in 2005 in 10 out of 15 countries
the unemployment rates for women were higher than those calculated for both sexes
together.
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On the other hand in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine female unemployment was
lower than male unemployment in 2000, and this tendency sustained as well in 2005. During
the analyzed period, female activity rates also decreased in this group of countries,
particularly in Georgia, where rates fell from 73 percent in 1995 to 54 percent in 2004, which
could partly explain the obtained results.14
As regards female and male access to the labour market, the situation in the CIS
region is not homogenous. In several countries women seeking jobs outnumbered men,
while in some other countries men seeking jobs outnumbered women. Moreover, we could
distinguish two opposite trends as regards female unemployment. Between 1995 and 2005,
the number of unemployed women decreased in Armenia, Belarus, Moldova and Russia,
while in Azerbaijan and Georgia this number increased. In Ukraine, between 1995 and 2000
the number of women actively searching for jobs increased, while between 2000 and 2005 it
declined.
Generally, our study gives a mixed picture of gender differences in the labour market.
We can not conclude that the transformation deteriorated the situation of women in the entire
CIS, nor can such a statement be made in regard to men. We did observe that labour market
changes had a negative impact on both sexes. Furthermore, more specific analysis reveals
that larger inequalities can be found between different age groups (older vs. younger
generation), sectoral and occupational groups, rather than between the two genders.
A more detailed analysis based on additional information such as duration of
unemployment, its sectoral characteristics, unemployment compensation, etc. should be
conducted to receive a more comprehensive picture of gender aspects of labour market
participation. Unfortunately, the lack of appropriate data and reliable sources of information
makes such a task difficult.
14 Unemployment rate is calculated as a proportion of people looking for a job to those who have or are looking for
a job. Such definition implies that inflow from unemployment into inactivity might artificially reduce the
unemployment rate.
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3.1.3 Income15
Although income does not measure all aspects of life quality, it is generally
associated with the level of wealth, or derivative of wealth. One of the important issues is
income distribution among members of the society, as several studies claimed a negative
relationship between income inequality and economic growth.
According to estimates of earned income16 in the CIS region, EU-12 and EU-15, the
gender gap existed in all countries during the entire period of 1997-2004. However, its size
and extent were different. In 1997, the largest gender income gap in the CIS region was
observed in Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, where the level of women’s income was some 40
percent lower than that of men. For comparison, in the same year the gender income gap17
in EU-15 varied between 40 percent in Ireland and Luxembourg to 80 percent in Sweden.
Among the EU-12 countries, Malta had the largest gap, and Latvia the smallest one. The CIS
region was generally more homogenous, and the gender wage gap in most countries in this
region was around 50-60 percent, while in EU-12 and EU-15 larger differences among
countries were observed. As was expected, the absolute female income in EU-15 and EU-12
was higher than in the CIS region.
To a certain extent, these results are influenced by the method of construction of the
indicator, which was calculated on the basis of the female/male wage levels in each sector,
and male and female shares in the economically active population. Generally, a higher CIS’s
female participation in the labour market affected the estimation of income gained by women.
Contrary to the majority of EU-15 and EU-12 countries where the level of female
income was relatively high and continued to grow slowly but constantly, insufficient economic
reforms in the CIS region have led to an increase in poverty and gender inequalities. Since
1997, till 2004 the gender gap in earned income in all CIS countries was widening, as
increases in incomes were not affecting women equitably. In Georgia the gap increased by
9.7 percentage points (in 2004 compared to 2003); in Moldova and Ukraine the differences
between the incomes earned by men and women increased in 2004 respectively by 5.4 and
3.3 percentage points compared to the previous year.
15 All data used in this section are based on UNDP sources (Human Development Report; Indicators, different
years).
16 Following UNDP calculation, because of the lack of gender-disaggregated income data use female and male
earned income estimation. female and male earned income are estimation on the basis of data on the ratio of the
female nonagricultural wage to the male nonagricultural wage, the female and male shares of the economically
active population, the total female and male population and GDP per capita in PPP US$.
17 Gender gap in this case is defined as the ratio of female to male income generated yearly.
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Figure 4: Gender gap in earned income for selected countries, 1997-2004, female
earnings as percent of male earnings
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1998 2000 2004
Source: Own calculation based on HDR Indicators, UNDP
On the contrary, in NMS between 2001 and 2004 the income gap has tended to
narrow, with the lowest inequality in Latvia where female income equalled 67 percent of male
income and 64 percent in Hungary. (However, none of the EU-12 countries reached the level
of Nordic countries, especially that of Sweden (80 percent in 2004).
To sum up, we have noticed a considerable income gap between genders both in
1997 and 2004 in the CIS region. Since 1997, this disproportion tended to grow over time
although at a slow pace. An increase of gender income disparity was also registered in
Bulgaria, Poland and Slovakia. However, the reverse trend was observed in Hungary and
Romania. In 2004, female income ranged from 62 percent of male income in Kazakhstan to
37 percent in Georgia.
Among factors explaining the gender income gap, the sectoral and vertical gender
segregations are often mentioned. Concentration of female labour in the less profitable
sectors and in the public sector (mainly in education, healthcare, and administration) resulted
in lower remuneration, given women’s qualifications or workloads. Vertical segregation, a
less than proportional women’s representation in management structures, could also be
associated with female preferences, such as defined work time or part–time employment.
However, these factors could only partly explain the existing income disparity.
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3.2. Economic opportunity
Following WEF approach I employ term economic opportunity to describe quality of
women economic involvement, i.e. sectoral distribution of employment, sectoral differentials
in earnings, impact of maternity laws on women hiring, etc. Studying these aspects can help
to identify basic reasons of the existing gender gap.
3.2.1 Employment and sectoral changes18
The analysis of gender economic opportunities should focus on labour market
segregation, which contributes considerably to income and wage disparities.
Figure 5: Employment in selected countries, by gender and by sector, 2004, percent
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Services Industry Agriculture
female
male
female
male
female
male
female
male
female
male
female
male
female
male
female
male
female
male
Azerbaijan Georgia Moldova Ukraine Kyrgyzstan Russia Bulgaria Poland Germany
Source: Own calculations based on UNECE Statistical Division data/ change legend – just agriculture, etc
In 2004 patterns of female employment in the CIS differed significantly from those observed
in EU-15 and EU-12 but this reflected region’s underdevelopment rather than specific gender
issues. Apart from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, in the other of the CIS countries there was
a high representation of women in agriculture. In 2004, agriculture was the main sector of
female employment in Georgia, and the second source of employment in Azerbaijan,
Moldova, and Kyrgyzstan (Fig. 5). In Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Ukraine, and
Russia women were more often employed in services than men while the opposite proportion
18 Provided data are from UNECE Statistical Division Database
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was observed in industry. This representation is similar to the typical image of EU-15 and
EU-12 where female employment in services prevailed.
Agriculture
The gender structure of employment in each of the major economic sectors differed
across all CIS countries. In 2000 (for which the most comprehensive data are available)
more than a half of female labour force of Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Moldova were engaged
in agriculture, while in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus this share was below 20 percent. In the
majority of EU-12 members apart from Romania female employment in this sector was below
20 percent of total with the highest level in Poland (18.3 percent) and only 3.7 percent of
female labour working in agriculture in the Czech Republic.
Since 1995 we could observe some changes in the pattern of female employment in
agriculture, although they were not uniform for the whole CIS region. Since then female
employment in agriculture has increased in Armenia, while in Ukraine an increase of the
female employment in agriculture was noticed just in 200419. In Georgia and Kazakhstan the
percentage of female employed in agriculture remained at a high, almost constant, level
between 2000 and 2004. Whereas in Russia, Moldova and Azerbaijan female labour
participation in agriculture, measured by the real number of employees fell down20. In Russia
we noticed the shift toward employment in services and industry, while in Moldova mass
migration was responsible for female outflow from agriculture. The lack of gender
disaggregated data for Turkmenistan and Tajikistan makes the analysis for these countries
unfeasible.
In Russia, Moldova and Ukraine changes in female employment in agriculture were
parallel to those observed among men. While the directions of changes remained the same,
their scopes varied.
In Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan some gender specific factors
resulted in different paths of changes for women and men. For instance, more Kazakh men
quit work in agriculture, due to new employment opportunities especially in mining oil and
gas industries. In general the structural changes in Central Asia shifted production from
19 This observation is based on UNECE indicators, although data from FAO did not confirm this fact, showing a
gradual decrease of employment in agriculture between 1999 and 2004.
(http://www.fao.org/ES/ess/compendium_2006/pdf/UKR_ESS_E.pdf)
20 Because more men than women left agriculture in the analyzed period in Fig. 6 the proportion of female
employed in this sector in comparison to men increased.
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agriculture towards minerals and manufacturing which is reflected by the changes in the
employment structure. In particular, between 1998 and 2004, the industry’s share in GDP
rose from 36 percent to 54 percent in Azerbaijan and from 31 percent to 39 percent in
Kazakhstan (Dowling and Wignaraja, 2006). The relative changes are presented below in
Fig. 6.
Figure 6: Female/male employment ratio in agriculture in selected CIS countries,
2000 - 2004
Source: Own calculation based on UNECE Statistical Division data
Industry
Strong differentiation of female employment in industry can be observed across the
CIS countries. In 2000, the highest participation ratio was registered in Belarus (30 percent of
working females were employed in industry), whereas in Georgia this ratio was only 4,1
percent. This reflected differences in levels of industrialization among individual CIS
countries, rather than gender-related specificities of the labour market.
Female employment in industry in the CIS region remained relatively high in
comparison to EU-15, ranging from 22 percent of the corresponding total employment for
both sexes in Georgia to 39 percent in Ukraine (in 2004). Similar proportion of female
employment was observed in EU-12, especially in the countries from the former USSR – in
Lithuania and Latvia (respectively 35 percent and 36 percent).
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In 2000-2003 apart from Georgia, in the CIS the level of female employment in
industry remained relatively stable. In Russia there was a slight decreased in number of
women working in industry which was accompanied by growth of female participation in
services. While in Azerbaijan some female labour inflow into industry was most likely an
effect of an outflow from agriculture.
In the same period, men’s participation in industry increased, especially in
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Azerbaijan. This increase can partly be explained by
the growing importance of mining, oil and gas sectors. A reduction of women’s jobs in
industry reflected a decrease in numbers of clerical positions and restructuring of light
industries, such as textiles shedding labour, mostly females as opposed to male-dominated
industries.
The abovementioned outflow of the female labour force from industry in Moldova was
accompanied by similar changes for males. Both genders were leaving the country looking
for job opportunities abroad.
Figure 7: Female/male employment ratio in industry in selected CIS countries, 2000-04
Source: Own calculations based on UNECE Statistical Division data
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Services
The level of employment in services was generally lower in the CIS countries that in
the majority of EU-12 and EU-15 countries, but also the dispersion among the CIS was
significant. In the majority of the CIS countries, employment in services has expanded over
the last decade at the expense of agriculture.
In 2000, in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan the female/male ratio of employed in
services was slightly below one. The proportions of women in total employment in this sector
were 46 percent, 48,5 percent, and 46,2 percent respectively. Similar proportions were
registered in some of EU-15, and EU-12 countries, namely in Greece, Spain, Cyprus and
Malta. In the other CIS member countries, the number of women working in services
exceeded the number of male employees, which was also a general pattern in the majority of
EU-15 and EU-12 countries.
Between 2000 and 2004 the share of females in total employment in services modestly
increased, from 0.7 percentage points in Moldova to 6.9 percentage points in Azerbaijan. In
certain countries (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Russia) women shifted from
agriculture to services, although as mentioned by Rutkowski (2006), this did not necessarily
imply that female labour moved directly from agriculture to services. An alternative scenario
was also possible: agricultural labour moved to manufacturing and manufacturing labour
moved to services. However, the period covered by data is rather short and available data is
excessively aggregated so those remain only a hypothesis about the real character of
changes.
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Figure 8: Female/male employment ratio in services in selected CIS countries, 2000-04
Source: Own calculation based on UNECE Statistical Division data
Historically, more women than men were employed in the services sector in the CIS
region and their employment in this sector has been growing during the transition period,
being in line with EU-15, EU-12, and other developed countries’ changes in the labour
structure. On the other hand, fewer women than men were employed in agriculture and in
industry, also corresponding to the situation in EU-15 and EU-12. Services generate growth
and new jobs worldwide, and the share of this sector may serve as an indicator of structural
changes.
More detailed data on Russia and Ukraine confirm that there was a certain disparity
inside the services sector with respect to gender structure of employment. Statistics for
Ukraine for 1999-2002 reveal a high percentage of women in the wholesale, retail and real
estate trades, with education and healthcare on the top of the list. Women were also
frequently employed in the financial, legal and social services, while typical male activities
included transportation and construction. Also, a high proportion of women were employed in
the information and accounting services (64.8 percent in 2000) (Gender issues…, 2003). In
Russia we can observe similar trends: in 1994-96, 79 percent of economists, 94 percent of
accountants, and 98 percent of bookkeepers in Russia were women (Ogloblin, 1999). Such
structure is relatively favourable for women, as it is linked to the post-industrial sectors, with
bright prospects for rapid further development. Conversely, in both countries women are
excessively employed in the state sector, while a significant number of men shifted into the
private sector.
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Gender wage structure by sector21
Although it is evident that the wage gap is a major problem of gender inequality, the
lack of meaningful and consistent gender wage data series for the majority of countries
makes the comparison difficult. According to several LFS conducted in the CIS countries, the
largest earnings gaps were registered in Russia and Ukraine.
Data on Ukraine’s agriculture sector demonstrate remuneration gender differences
only slightly larger than in the majority of EU-15 and quite similar to some of the EU-12
countries, both in 1993 and 1998-2000. In 1993, Ukrainian females employed in agriculture
received 79 percent, and 91 percent of male’s earnings in 2000, while in Sweden the
respective ratio reached the level of 89 percent and 94.8 percent for the same time periods.
In industry these differences were larger. Ukrainian women were paid roughly 58
percent of men’s salaries in 1993, and 64 percent in 2000, whereas e.g. in Belgium women
could expect 65 percent and 84 percent of men’s salaries.22 The Ukrainian proportion was
significantly lower than that in Sweden23 (89 percent and 90 percent, respectively).
21 Data used in this section are coming from the ILO database, unless specified otherwise.
22 For Ukraine, an indicator for “wage in industry” is calculated as average monthly earnings in sectors 2-9 (ISIC-Rev.
2).
23 For Sweden, the wage in industry is calculated on the basis of average earnings per hour in manufacturing
(ISIC-Rev.3, section D).
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Figure 9: Gender pay ratios in selected countries, by sector, 1993-2000, average
female wage as percent of average male wage
Source: Own calculations based on ILO data
According to estimates of the Asian Development Bank (Gender Assessment…,
2006) in 2004 Azerbaijani women earned 54 percent of men’s earnings in health and social
services sectors, while in Tajikistan women earned 46 percent of men’s wages. A somewhat
better situation was reported in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, where women's wages were
respectively 62 percent and 65 percent.
Wage differentials can result from several factors, such as level of skills and
education, differences in productivity, and occupied positions within the sectors. Women tend
to be employed in low-pay positions24. For example, in Kazakhstan only 3 percent of
managerial positions are held by women, despite a high female participation in the labour
market and a relatively higher level of their education. Moreover, the largest wage gap
between men and women in Kazakhstan was observed in a mining region with the highest
regional product because 90 percent of workplaces in mineral extraction and mining are
occupied by men (Gender Assessment…, 2006)
24 Women are often not in the lowest paid jobs, nor are they in the highest paid ones.
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Before 1989 females in the CIS, as well as in other transition economies, were frequently
employed in education, health services and public administration, which experienced large
cuts of salaries in the 1990s.
Gender segregation is often used as a factor, which can explain the earnings gap.
According to Paci (2002) labour market segregation may lead to a gender income gap for a
number of reasons, in particular:
• Women are concentrated in a limited number of occupations, resulting in an
oversupply of labour in certain market segments and low salaries, and
• Women face more family commitments so are less mobile than men and this can lead
to wage discrimination
• At the same time, women’s concentration in low pay occupations in the CIS countries
was lower than that in Western Europe.
Unfortunately, data at the desirable level of desegregation are difficult to obtain for the
whole region. On the basis of secondary sources, we can just point out that earning
differences in Russia in 1994-96 were relatively low but tended to increase after the financial
crisis of 1998 (Gerry and Kim Byung-Yeon, 2001). In Ukraine, it is claimed (Ganguli and
Terrell, 2005) that the gender wage gap was greater for higher pay jobs (the upper 50
percent) and lower for the low pay jobs (the lower 50 percent), from 1986 to 2003 gender gap
in the lower paid jobs has decreased, partially due to improved women productive
characteristics.
3.3. Political empowerment25
This part of the report refers to women’s representation in political bodies and their
role in policymaking. Gender pay gap (2006) reported an average a 15.6 percent share of
women among MPs worldwide (in both houses of parliaments).
In 1997 the share of women in the lower chambers of parliaments in the CIS, ranged
from 1 percent in Kyrgyzstan to 13 percent in Kazakhstan, while the respective indicators for
the countries that joined the EU in 2007 amounted to 7 percent (Romania) and 13 percent
(Bulgaria). Although in the CIS there are no legislative provisions that can be considered
explicitly discriminatory, the difference between the CIS and EU-15 countries is evident. In
25 In this section we use data from the World Development Indicators database and the UNECE Statistical
Division database.
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1997 among EU-15, the largest female representation in parliament was recorded in Sweden
(40 percent) and Finland (34 percent).
Between 1997 and 2004, the number of female active policymakers increased in the
analyzed country groups, however, still the differences between the CIS and EU, both the old
and new member states, remained significant. Yet the gap was narrowing: in the CIS
countries, except Armenia and Azerbaijan, the number of female parliamentarians increased
or stood the same in 2004 compared to 1997. In Russia and Georgia women’s
representation in the parliament remained almost unchanged. Women were poorly
represented in the Georgian and Uzbek parliaments.
A similar picture can be observed in respect to female representation in the
government. In 1998, no woman took a ministerial position in Moldova and Armenia, while in
Russia and Azerbaijan respectively 8 percent and 10 percent of appointed ministers were
women. The lack of appropriate time series makes it impossible to find the trend of changes.
However, female representation in the ministerial level positions in the CIS remained low in
comparison to the CEE countries, such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, where
the share of female ministers was 17-19 percent.
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Figure 10: Women in parliament in selected countries, 1997-2004, percent of total
seats occupied in lower or single house
Sources: Own calculation based on UNECE data
Bearing on a scanty data on breakdown of judges by gender for the CIS region, we
could point out a relatively high female representation in Georgia and Moldova, where
respectively 37.5 percent and 33.2 percent of employed on this position were women (2001),
and these numbers were even higher than the averages for UK (15.6 percent) or Ireland
(16.4 percent) for the respective year.
Women’s participation in public life and politics in the CIS remains low. After 1997 in
some CIS countries women’s presence in political life has revived, for example in Moldova. It
is also noticeable that the representation of women is much higher in local governments than
at the national level.
In EU-12 we could observe a high women’s participation in political life only in a few
countries: in Bulgaria, where in 2002-05 women accounted for 26 percent of members of
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parliament, and Latvia where respectively 21 percent of members of parliament were
females, (2003-2006).
3.4. Educational attainment26
Many gender inequalities, especially in respect to economic opportunities originate
from unequal access to education. The former Soviet system attempted to secure universal
access to education both for men and women, so we can expect that this particular aspect
may not be a major obstacle to gender equity in the CIS.
In 1991 the gross enrolment rate (the share of children of a given age group enrolled)
in primary school in the CIS ranged from 81 percent in Uzbekistan to 110 percent in
Azerbaijan, while in EU-15 the lowest level of primary school enrolment was observed in
Luxembourg (90,3 percent), in EU-12 - in Cyprus (90 percent) and in Romania (91,3
percent). Although in the majority of the CIS countries female primary enrolment rates were
generally lower than those of males, these differences were rather insignificant. The picture
was not so uniform in EU-15 and EU-12 but gender parity in primary school enrolment -
calculated as the ratio of female gross enrolment rate to male gross enrolment rate - stood
around 100 percent in 1991 (see Fig. 11).
26 Data used in this section are coming from WDI database
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Figure 11: Gender parity in primary school gross enrolment in selected countries,
1991 and 2003, percent27
Sources: Own calculations based on the UNECE data
From 1991 to 2003 we observed among the CIS countries two opposite trends. In
Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, and Moldova, Russia, and Kazakhstan the gender disparity in primary
school enrolment enlarged. While in others countries: Belarus, Ukraine, Uzbekistan positive
changes were reported toward equal proportion of girls and boy attending primary schools.
However on average female-to-male ratio of primary school enrolment was higher in
the CIS countries than in Bulgaria and Romania, and at a comparable level with the EU-15
members.
In line with the Millennium Development Goals, which include the introduction of
universal primary education, we have compared the gender gap in primary completion rate28
in the CIS with its levels in EU-15 and EU-12. In 1995 this rate was lower in Belarus,
Moldova, and Russia than in most EU-15 and EU-12 countries. However, after 1995 the level
of completion was growing in all CIS countries except Georgia and Tajikistan. By 2004, the
situation changed a bit in the majority of EU-15 where female graduates outnumbered the
male graduates. In the CIS region, gender parity was still in favour of male population,
although this difference was rather negligible; in 2004, 96.5 percent of girls and 97.2 percent
of boys from the CIS region successfully completed the last year of their primary schools.
27Gender parity is calculated in the following way :100 * (Female GER / Male GER), where GER stays for the
gross enrolment rate (share of children enrolled in primary education in total number of children of the respective
age).
28 The primary completion rate is measured by the total number of students who successfully completed the last
year of primary school in a given year divided by the total number of children of official graduation age.
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Data on secondary and tertiary education enrolment demonstrate a higher number of
female students, and disadvantage of boys in secondary and especially higher education in a
large number of countries.
Figure 12: Gender parity in tertiary school gross enrolment in selected countries, 1991
and 2003, percent29
Sources: Own calculations based on UNECE data
In 1991, the CIS region scored relatively well in terms of average post-secondary
educational attainment. In 1991, the gross female enrolment rate in tertiary education in the
CIS varied between 18 percent of the appropriate female age group in Tajikistan to 58
percent of the appropriate group in Russia. None of the EU-15 countries had such a high
proportion of female enrolled in tertiary education (Finland –52 percent of the female age
group). The same was also true for the EU-12 members. On the other hand, in the CIS the
largest dispersion occurred between two groups of countries: Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan (female enrolment rate below 15 percent) and Russia, Belarus and Ukraine
(female enrolment rate above 50 percent). Yet these differences can not be assigned only to
gender discrimination as the male enrolment rate in tertiary education also varied extensively
between those two groups in 1991.
29 Gender parity is calculated in the following way: 100 * (Female GER / Male GER), where GER stays for the
gross enrolment rate, here the enrolment in tertiary education.
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During the period of 1991-2004, female enrolment in post-secondary education
declined in Azerbaijan to 14 percent, and in Tajikistan to 8 percent of the respective age
groups. Similar changes were observed within male population, especially in Azerbaijan,
where this indicator for male students dropped from 28 percent (1991) to 16 percent (2004),
while in Tajikistan the gender gap increased as male students greatly outnumbered the
female students.
Enrolment declines may be partly related to growing poverty and can be associated
with changes on the demand side rather than on the supply side, yet this pattern is not the
same for all low-income CIS countries. Some other country-specific factors may be
responsible for this. For example, in Tajikistan the drop in the number of girls enrolled in
secondary education and consequently in the tertiary education is a result of the reduction of
a period of compulsory education (from 11 to 9 years) and a revival of traditional cultural
preferences. In universities, the percentage of female students has decreased mostly
because of families’ preference to educate boys during periods of financial distress. It is also
reported that some girls are not allowed by their parents to attend secondary school because
of religious beliefs.
In contrast to these two countries, the majority of CIS members have experienced
growth in the numbers of female and male students. This growth was the most spectacular in
Kazakhstan where, according to the official statistics, the number of females enrolled in
tertiary education more than doubled. Growth in female enrolment rates was also registered
in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus. Similarly, the number of male students in the CIS region has
increased albeit at a slower pace, which resulted in the narrowing gender gap.
Overall, the CIS member countries scored relatively well in terms of their education
indicators. Since 1991, the trends in gender disparity in enrolment rates in primary education
varied across the CIS. While in Belarus, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan gender inequality seems to
have contracted over time, in Azerbaijan, Moldova, Tajikistan and Russia fewer girls than
boys were enrolled in primary schools since 1991.
As regards the post-secondary education, there is a visible “reverse gender gap” in
the majority of CIS, except Tajikistan and Azerbaijan; it is particularly large in Kazakhstan,
Moldova, and Russia. The “reverse gender gap” in tertiary education is also typical for the
majority of EU-15 (except Cyprus) and EU-12. As a result, significantly more women hold
degree-level qualifications in the youngest age group (up to 35 years) than men do.
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Furthermore, in Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan this “reverse gap” has been widening over
time. The collapse of the secondary and post-secondary vocational education system, which
previously served mostly male students, may have also influenced the trend.
3.5. Demography and health30
In the most CIS countries, the total population in the last few decades has been
declining as a result of falling fertility and growing mortality rates, with the largest decreases
registered in Russia and Ukraine. Insignificant changes have been registered in Georgia and
Belarus. Population decline was also observable in EU-12 members, especially in former
USSR republics: Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
On the contrary, in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan the total population grew,
mainly because of high fertility rate, which well exceeded the rates observed in the other CIS,
CEE countries, or EU-15. In all analyzed countries, the female population prevails, due to its
higher life expectancy.
According to the official data, an average life expectancy for both men and women in
the CIS in 1980 remained slightly below the level characteristic for most of the EU-15
countries, and was similar to the level observed in EU-12. An average life expectancy varied
between 65 years in Kyrgyzstan and 71 years in Belarus and Armenia. Due to a better state
of health care and living conditions as compared to the CIS, an average female life
expectancy in EU-15 in 1980 varied between 75 years in Ireland and 79 years in Sweden,
while in Tajikistan a newborn female infant would live, if prevailing patterns of mortality at the
time of her birth were to stay the same throughout her life, only 65 years. The gap existed
also when comparing male life expectancy figures: those born at the beginning of the 1980s
could expect to live on average from 60 to 68 years in the CIS, while those born in EU-15
had 68-73 years ahead of them.
Since 1980, the gap between the CIS, on one hand, and EU-15 and EU-12, on the
other hand, has widened. In EU-15 and EU-12 an average life expectancy has increased
while in CIS it has decreased.
According to the official data, a long-lasting decline in life expectancy has been
observed in Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, while in Armenia and Azerbaijan an
30 Data used in this section are mainly coming from the World Health Organization (WHO) database.
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average lifespan shortening has been smaller and only temporary. It is believed that different
reactions of men and women to new economic and social situations contributed to this
gender gap in the region. Brainerd (2005) tested several hypotheses in respect to the high
mortality trend in Russia, which might be also true for countries with similar problems:
• Deterioration of healthcare
• Changes in the diet
• Alcohol consumption, especially related to external causes of death (homicide,
suicide, and accidents)
• Stress associated with a poor outlook for the future
She found that although health system in the former Soviet Union deteriorated
significantly, there was no evidence that this deterioration played a major role in
demographic changes. Smoking, obesity and malnutrition were not the major problems. Her
results point to two factors: consumption of alcohol and stress associated with a poor outlook
for future. She claimed that these two factors were of equal importance in accounting for the
dramatic increase in mortality in Russia but she also admitted that a large residual remains to
be explained. There was evidence that an increase of mortality was mainly due to mortality of
men younger than 65 years, which could be still economically active. The main reasons of
death were cardiovascular problems, and the second in importance were the external causes
of death. Some evidences imply that mortality rates increased the most among lower
socioeconomic groups (Brainerd, 2005).
Trend in female life expectancy was similar but less dramatic. As a result, in the CIS
the average female life expectancy fell from 73 years in 1980 to 72 years in 2004. In
Kazakhstan it declined from 73 years in 1981 to 71 years in 2004. On the contrary, life
expectancy for women in EU-12 remained stable and has increased since 2001. In general,
a gender gap in the CIS is noticeable but with a considerable disadvantage on the male side.
We might doubt if the longer life expectancy of women could be treated as their
advantage. When comparing the healthy life expectancy31 we could find out that the
differences between men and women are still significant. However while considering
expected number of life in a good health we found out that there is a smaller gender gap in
all countries. In Kazakhstan, Armenia, Uzbekistan and Lithuania although still women could
expect longer vitality, their bad health condition limit their advantages over male population.
31 Healthy life expectancy is an indicator estimated by World Health Organization. It is define as an average
number of years that a person can expect to live in "full health" by taking into account years lived in less than full
health due to disease and/or injury.
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Figure 13: Differences between life expectancies for females and males in selected
countries, 2003, years
Sources: Own compilation based on WHO data
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