# **INTRODUCTION**

The socialist regime in the former Yugoslavia was characterized by a de jure gender equality in labor relations, which translated into equal access to education opportunities and high levels of employment among men and women. Transition to a market economy was marked by sectoral restructuring, privatization of state-owned enterprises, price adjustments, growth of the informal sector and a rapid increase in unemployment. Despite stable economic growth for almost a decade (since 2000 and up until the global recession in 2009), the labor market performance in Serbia remained weak in comparison to other transition economies. Only a half of working age adults was employed in 2009 and the activity rate of population is much lower than the regional average.

While labor statistics have been collected by the Statistical Office of Serbia on an annual basis for the past decade, there are few studies on the differences in access to jobs and general employment patterns between men and women in Serbia. This paper aims to fill this gap by providing a gender-disaggregated picture of the labor market. To distinguish the impact of the global economic crisis, selected employment indicators as well as wages of men and women are compared with the data for 2008; however an in-depth examination of the impact of the crisis on the labor market in Serbia is beyond the scope of the paper. The analysis relies primarily on the results of the Labor Force Surveys (LFS) conducted in Serbia in April, 2008 and October, 2009. Whenever possible, labor market characteristics in Serbia are compared with those in the EU countries, where similar labor force surveys have been organized.

The findings of this paper show that although the overall labor market situation in Serbia is difficult, women are in a much more disadvantageous position than men:

- The employment rate of working age women is 26% lower than men’s while the inactivity and unemployment rates are significantly higher (See Annex 1 for definitions of labor market indicators).

- Women are markedly underrepresented in the business world and in the political arena. Men comprise 72% of the self-employed, make up 71% of the company owners and hold over 80% of ministerial positions in the government.

- There is a significant wage gap between men and women in a number of sectors and occupational groups with low educated women being particularly disadvantaged.

The reasons that hamper women’s employment and career advancement include 1) a disproportionate share of household responsibilities, including child care; 2) lack of flexible work arrangements (e.g. parttime or seasonal jobs) that have helped women in EU countries to combine employment with family responsibilities; 3) stereotypes about traditional roles of men and women; and 4) low market demand for female labor. It is hoped that the gender disparities highlighted in this paper will provoke further and more in depth research of gender inequalities in the Serbian labor market.

The rest of this paper is organized as follows: part I provides a snapshot of men’s and women’s employment patterns, part II describes gender disparities in entrepreneurship and access to leadership positions, part III focuses on the differences in earnings between men and women and part IV offers concluding observations.

# **PART I. EMPLOYMENT CHARACTERISTICS OF MEN AND WOMEN IN SERBIA**

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