The countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia have a long history of striving for gender equality, especially in the public sphere. Not only was this an important goal during the socialist era, but governments continued to pursue gender equality even during the difficult years of transition. The governments in the region allocated substantial resources toward the health and education of both women and men. They also adopted legislation that treated women and men equally in the labor market and they provided child care services.
During much of the last century, the region surpassed countries both developing and developed in establishing the equal treatment of women and men. This report analyzes various markets through a gender lens. It thereby quickly makes two main findings. First, our knowledge of why men and women behave differently is limited. For example, why do women pursue certain fields in education that men tend to avoid or why do more women than men migrate from some countries. Second, average economic indicators can be misleading because they hide the differences in behavior across large groups (in our case, males and females). The importance of the adoption of a gender lens in the development of policies in the region derives in no small part from the high stakes resulting from the dramatic demographic changes and mounting labor resource needs.
Moreover, such a lens helps countries identify the necessary and appropriate policy and institutional framework to allow them to take advantage of underexploited opportunities (for example, bringing more educated women of prime age into the labor force). Ultimately, the use of disaggregated data to undertake analysis will likely lead to better policies that further the long-term objective of shared growth
World Bank. Author: Sattar,Sarosh.Document Date:2011/11/21.Document Type:Working Paper.Report Number: 65932.Volume No: 1 of 1
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