EQUAL – Towards closing the gender gap in balancing professional and private lives of employees

ended

In spite of recent legislative changes, gender inequality in Serbia still persists, and stereotypes, including women’s role in family care, perpetuated by mainstream media, reinforce it. In one of the key aspects of gender inequality, the “domain of time”, representing gender gap in work-life balance, Serbia’s score ranks below EU average. The proposed project aims at promoting equality by addressing the causes of the gender gap regarding balancing of professional and family lives. A robust awareness-raising campaign will be carried out, including traditional and online media campaigns, advertising campaign, public debates, discussions and advocacy meetings. Education activities will be organised – trainings and distribution of instruction manuals, and two researches – one pertaining to local and the other to central level practices and policies – will be carried out, as base of future policies’ changes. The project will address obstacles in the way of gender equality in work-life balance: tacit public acceptance of this inequality, lack of knowledge about labour-related rights, lack of the sense of entitlement of employees, and women in particular, to ask that their rights are observed and that other, non-mandatory measures at employers’ disposal are put to work. The project will also address the reluctance of employers to engage in practices of support to employees’ work-life balance, and will reach out to local authorities, soliciting their participation in dealing with this problem. Finally, the project will provide evidence for update of existing central-level policies regarding work-life balance.