Washington, D.C.,January 24, 2008

AGENDA

 Sarosh Sattar (Senior Economist and ECA Gender Coordinator, ECSPE)
Where the Gender Gap is Not: The Case of ECA

Issues:  In the last 15 years, most countries in the ECA region have transformed from centrally planned to open market economies. After an initial recession in the early phase, the 1999 – 2006 period has been one of high growth and there has been a productivity and wage surge though net job creation was disappointing. Against this background, in many ECA countries, women’s labor force participation has been falling and a gender wage gap remains. These differences could be driven by a variety of factors including human capital acquisition, returns to education, occupational segregation, child bearing/rearing decisions, availability of child- and eldercare services, household work, and gender discrimination. Questions of importance for the region are (i) whether women have the appropriate skill profile to benefit from globalization as seen by greater trade and migration opportunities, (ii) whether patterns of growth impact labor outcomes for women and men differently, and (iii) what are the implications of demographic trends in the region for reversing the current downward trend in women’s labor force participation, and (iv) whether labor markets are sufficiently flexible to attract a higher portion of female workers?

 11:15 – 11:30  

Coffee

 

Issues: Female entrepreneurship can play an important role in creating jobs, raising incomes, and creating wealth. The ECA region has a high share of female headed enterprises comparable to the US and EU (25%-30%). Nevertheless, this is well below parity with males.  Recent work carried out sheds light on the entrepreneurial behavior of women. Some factors that impact women’s entrepreneurship rates are income per capita of a country, overall entrepreneurial activity in the country, attitudinal perceptions of women’s economic roles, gender composition of women’s social networks, and direct and indirect legal constraints. In addition, (i) are there other factors that impact women’s entrepreneurship differentially from men’s? (ii) what are the drivers behind women’s decision to chose entrepreneurship as a career path as against a necessity? (iii) what are the obstacles to women’s scaling up their businesses?

 

 

 1:30 – 3:00 

 PANEL 3: Pension Reform

 

Chair:  Sandor Sipos (Sector Manager, HDNSP)

 

Issues:  Pension reform has been carried out in almost all ECA countries and many countries have adopted a multi-pillar social security system. However, pension reforms can have very different effects on men and women due to differentials in formal sector participation rates and wage earnings. But multi-pillar pension systems also have a more targeted public defined benefit pillar that can help women. Given the economic transition in the ECA region, questions arise as to (1) what are the implications of changing male/female formal sector participation for future pension income and poverty more broadly and (ii) what is the combined impact of the private defined contribution pillar, the targeted public defined benefit, and the intra-family transfers implied by required survivors benefits.

Issues: Assets empower men and women in terms of providing security, income-earning opportunities and access to credit markets. Ownership of productive assets (such as land and machinery) is generally skewed towards men while human capital assets appear to be more equally divided in the ECA region. The transition countries have implemented the largest land redistribution program in recent history as well as the largest enterprise privatization program though little is known on whether these was done equitably from a gender perspective. Moreover, questions arise to what degree do the economic changes experienced by the ECA countries – including the reduced importance of agriculture, make the ownership of certain assets (land) less important while increasing the importance of others such as skills and finance.  Furthermore, what – if any – is the differential economic impact of ownership of productive assets by women in contrast to men? Does ownership of assets increase women’s likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur? Do women have similar access rates to finance as men do?