Overcoming Inequalities – Crisis and Employment

Gordana Obradović-Dragisic

The paper will first present some introduction on situation in Croatia regarding gender inequalities in the labour market, and policies, strategies and plans that are aimed to tackle it. In spite of various efforts to improve the situation of women's human rights, women are faced with adverse conditions in the labour market. Several researches has shown that women are engaged in less paid jobs more often then men, they are using sick leave more then men, they are not represented in the managerial positions. At the same time unemployed women are faced with different problems such as lack of skills , lack of opportunities to gain new skills and are also faced with prejudices and stereotypes. Although jobs are uncertain for both genders, and crisis has stroked male dominated occupations first, still we can expect the effects on crisis on women more visible in the future. This is particularly evident for some categories of unemployed women who are without experience, older women and long term unemployed, women from minority groups whose chances in the labour market are very low and can worsened significantly. Government is preparing measures to prevent further and tackle crisis but effects of those measures from gender perspective are not foreseen and analysis has to be done.