Press
Release ECE/GEN/00/5
Geneva, 19 January 2000
Preparatory
Meeting Concludes Panel Discussion
on Women and the Economy
Debate Focuses on
Eliminating Discrimination, Balancing Work
and Child Care, Ensuring Equal Pay, Aiding
Transition Economies
A regional preparatory meeting for
the United Nations 2000 Review of the Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action on
gender equality carried on this afternoon with a panel discussion entitled "women and
the economy". Participants from the podium and the floor said repeatedly that
cultural and social barriers blocking women's full participation in economic activities
had to be ended if not only women but European national economies were to realize their
full potentials. And they urged greater efforts to enable women to balance working and
child-rearing responsibilities.
Also mentioned repeatedly were the
problems faced by women in "economies in transition" in Eastern Europe and the
territory of the former Soviet Union. It was noted that women there were suffering
disproportionately from layoffs and declining social protections.
The panellists, all of whom provided their
opening remarks at the end of the morning meeting, were Sheila Regehr, Economic Policy Coordinator for the
Status of Women of Canada; Eva Zimny, Associate
Professor at the Warsaw School of Economics, of Poland; and Oksana Kisselyova, of the non-governmental
organization (NGO) "Mama '86", of Ukraine.
Those offering comments and asking
questions from the floor included members of national delegations, representatives of
NGOs, and officials of international agencies.
Among other issues raised were access to
employment; equal employment opportunities and equal treatment; the situation of women
migrant workers; social measures to enhance the ability of women to cope with work and
family responsibilities; the role of the State in anti-poverty schemes for women and in
the provision of social benefits; and access to resources and encouragement of women's
entrepreneurship.
The preparatory conference, sponsored by
the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), the United Nations Development Programme,
UNIFEM, the Council of Europe, and the European Commission, will continue through Friday.
Its purpose is to provide European input for a special session of the United Nations
General Assembly entitled "Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the
Twenty-First Century" to be held in June in New York. The General Assembly will focus
on progress made in the wake of the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing five
years ago.
Participating in the debate this afternoon
were representatives of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); Finland; Turkey;
Public Services International; Italy; Belgium; Netherlands; Hungary; Switzerland; Centre
for Women's Global Leadership; Kazakhstan; Georgia; Norway; Former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia; Armenia; Israel; Azerbaijan; Kyrgyzstan; Romania; International Confederation
of Free Trade Unions; Spain; NGO Caucus; Uzbekistan; Denmark; Croatia; United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP); Ukraine; Women's International News Gathering Service;
Moldavia; International Federation of University Women; and European Women's Lobby.
The preparatory session will reconvene at
10 a.m. Thursday, 20 January, for a panel discussion entitled "women and
violence".
Discussion
The situation of women in
"transition countries" was mentioned frequently by national representatives;
others explained national policies to promote women's economic equality. A spokesperson
for Finland described Government efforts to avoid labour-market "segregation"
and subsequent disparities in pay between men and women, and programmes to provide
day-care and other services to help working mothers. Labour-market segregation was termed
by the Centre for Women's Global Leadership a method often used to set up and maintain
pools of low-paid, competent workers; liveable wages should therefore be guaranteed to all
women whatever their type of employment, the organization said. It was noted by others
that broad-based Government gender-equality programmes frequently were undermined by
"micro-climates" of traditional discrimination within private businesses.
A representative of Public Services
International, speaking on behalf of NGOs, said the gap between men's and women's pay was
a source of great inequality and that such pay gaps were found in all industries and
occupations and lasted through women's lifetimes; Governments needed to implement
strategies to close these gaps and to ensure that women's minimum wages were above the
poverty line; merit-based salaries were suggested, although it was remarked that such
salary scales had drawbacks and that the officials who set such salary scales could act in
discriminatory ways. The representative also said child care was the area that most
blocked women's full participation in the workplace; national child-care strategies were
needed to confront these difficulties.
It was noted that informal-sector,
temporary, and insecure jobs were disproportionately held by women, and several
participants in the debate said steps should be taken to provide greater rights and
security to such workers. Similarly it was noted that sufficient credit often was not
given to such traditional women's work as housekeeping and the role played by spouses in
helping with their husbands' shops and businesses. International or bilateral economic aid
should emphasize gender-equality, it was urged, and there should be better statistics on
the workplace situations of women in European countries. Encouragement of women's
entrepreneurship required better access to credit and expert advice, a representative of
Kazakhstan said, who outlined a Government programme to bolster the country's
small-business climate; this official urged the ECE to develop programmes that would help
such entrepreneurs, saying that the small-scale firms that could result could be an
effective and sustainable way of spurring growth in transition economies.
A representative of Armenia said 70 per
cent of those registered as "unemployed" in the country were women, but that in
fact only one out of every four unemployed persons was officially registered; and that men
were more likely to hear about jobs through informal networks. It was necessary to make
women's labour more "competitive" and more highly valued, this representative
said. A delegate of Israel said men -- particularly men in high positions in Government
and business -- should be more fully involved in efforts to advance women's equality.
A spokesperson for the International
Confederation of Free Trade Unions told the meeting that unionized women in the United
States earned 35 per cent more than non-unionized women workers, and that the figure in
Canada was 31 per cent more.
Panellist SHEILA REGEHR, Economic Policy
Coordinator for the Status of Women, of Canada, responding to the debate, said, among
other things, that the good practices and examples provided from the floor were valuable
and she hoped others could take advantage of them and that the meeting could find a way to
include them in its agreed conclusions; that she agreed that it was important to
capitalize on the advantages that changing economies and situations presented; that
cross-regional cooperation should be enhanced -- countries with different experiences
might be able to help each other that way; that attention should be paid to infrastructure
and education and to decision-makers in those fields, as decisions made about these
matters would greatly affect the situation of women; and that work and family balance was
indeed a vital issue that deserved constant monitoring and review.
Panellist OKSANA KISSELYOVA, of "Mama
'86", an NGO, of Ukraine, said, among other things, that salary gaps often existed
not because of unequal pay for unequal labour, but because men so often occupied higher
level positions and also had greater seniority -- women, as was well known, often left the
work world and then returned to it; she thought psychological matters also came into play
-- women were more "complicated" than men; in fact discriminatory stereotypes
about women often existed not only in society but in women's own heads. In addition, women
tended to worry more about the environment, about society, about equality -- about matters
that enhanced what was known as sustainable development. It was unfortunately true that in
the transition economies, women not only had been pushed from the labour market but from
decision-making positions. Ms. Kisselyova said she agreed with a statement from the floor
that it wasn't enough to educate women -- it also was necessary to create a legislative
basis for the equality of women in business and for the development of entrepreneurship
among women.
And panellist EVA ZIMNY, Associate
Professor at the Warsaw School of Economics, of Poland, said, among other things, that it
was useful to hear from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries, since
their situations often weren't communicated to the rest of the world; that she did not
agree with a statement by the representative of UNICEF that data from transition countries
was sufficient to reach conclusions and devise programmes -- information divided by gender
was lacking from a number of countries; that statistics she had from eight transition
countries indicated that women progressively had been pushed out of the most
"dynamic" economic sectors, such as banking and financial services, where
salaries had grown most rapidly, and had found work, where they found it at all, in
public-sector jobs such as education, where salaries had risen very slowly, if at all. In
transition countries, it was mainly NGOs that were putting gender issues onto the agendas
of Governments, she said -- it was going to be interesting to see how new arrangements of
power and advocacy in those countries played out.
* * *
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