“Heroes and she-roes”: Knowledge for analysis of and advocacy for equal pay for women and mothers in Macedonia (SHE-ROES)

The objective of this project is to correctly measure gender pay gaps (difference in wages between men and women) and motherhood pay gaps (difference in wages between mothers and childless women) in Macedonia and to advocate solutions for addressing the prevalent pay gaps.
In particular, previous research has demonstrated that Macedonia faces gender and motherhood wage gaps of 12.5% and 8.7%, respectively. However, a large part of females remains outside the labour market and can therefore not be considered when the pay gap is calculated (as their wage is not observed). This makes the above figures incorrect, since it is likely that females who stay outside the labour market are not randomly selected not to work. Hence, one bold challenge is to obtain knowledge for the proper calculation of pay gaps, i.e. econometric (technical) knowledge to address the selectivity bias in the labour market.

The project envisages activities positioned within three pillars:

  1. Professional development thorough capacity building and direct knowledge transfer.
  2. Collaborative research.
  3. Building networks for advocacy, promotion and collaboration beyond the project cycle.

 

Donor: Know-how Exchange Program – Austria through the Central European Initiative

Project partner (know-how provider): The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies

Duration: November 2015 – January 2017

 

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Video – The gender wage gap in Macedonia through the perspectives of 5 women

 

Initial kick-off meeting, Vienna, 21-22 December 2015 – Agenda – Gallery

Training “Econometric methods for survey data”, Vienna, 28-30 January 2016 – Agenda – Gallery

Research stay, Vienna, 31 January – 3 February 2016 – Agenda

Working meeting at the Federal Ministry of Education and Women, Vienna, 1 February 2016 – Gallery

Cartoon competition – Flyer – Call – Gallery & winners

Workshop „Gender and motherhood wage gap: Policies, data and econometric methods“, Skopje, 5 July 2016 – Call – Gallery

Round table “Women in the labor market: Stereotypes and challenges”, Skopje, 6 July 2016 – Invitation and agenda – Press release – Gallery

Research stay, Vienna, 19 – 24 September 2016 – Agenda – Gallery

Research seminars attended at wiiw (Gallery):

  • Innovation persistence and firm growth models, Dario Guarashio, University of Rome Sapientsa, 19 September 2016
  • On the future of the European Monetary Union: Targeted reforms instead of greater fiscal integration” Ana Iara, European Commission, 20 September 2016
  • The space for an industrial policy in Europe, Mario Pianta, 22 September 2016
  • Modest recovery in the East – new uncertainty because of Brexit, the economic relations of Austria with the region and the long-term structural changes in the CESEE countries, Mario Holzner, 23 September 2016
  • Connectivity in Central Asia – International workshop, 15-16 December 2016.

Working meeting with a gender expert at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, 22 September 2016 – Gallery

Research stay, Vienna, 14-15 December 2016 – Agenda

Economic forum: „Gender equal wages for higher economic growth“ – Skopje, 30 January 2017 – Аgenda – Gallery – Gender responsible companies

 

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FT Comment No.10 on the the economic aspects of the National Strategy for Gender Equality 2013 – 2020

Info-graph

Advocacy Show-card

Policy brief 15: The gender wage gap is detrimental for economic growth

Upgrade of EdPlaKo-MK

Manual for proper calculation of the gaps

 

 

FISCAST: Building capacity and tools for fiscal accountability, sustainability and transparency in Macedonia

The overall objective of the project is twofold: first, to improve the capacity of civil society and media to contribute to evidence-based economic dialogue in the country, enabling more participatory and transparent policymaking, with strong focus on fiscal policymaking; and, second, to increase the public awareness for the process of spending public money.

 

Supported by the British Embassy Skopje

Duration: August 2015 – March 2016

 

FISCAST-NET

 

Visualization of the gender wage gap in Macedonia: Demystifying wages and advocacy for gap minimization

The objective of this project is to raise the awareness for the gender wage discrimination in Macedonia.

In particular, the project builds on an ongoing work, consisting of two pillars: i) calculating the gender wage gap in Macedonia, after workers’ characteristics and selectivity bias have been taken into consideration; and ii) building the EdPlaKo-MK web tool which enables individuals to test their gender-neutral wage and companies to test their wage system against gender discrimination. The main activity of this proposal consists of visualization of the gender wage gap in Macedonia that will be added to the EdPlaKo-MK site, as well through two flyers, so as it gives further information on gender wage gap at the level of sector, occupation, age, experience and education, and further promotes the EdPlaKo-MK tool.

 

Duration: 7 months (2015)

Donor: TTF Open Society Foundations

 

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Web tool EdPlaKo-MK

Flyer 1 – Women’s day gallery

Expert opinion in “Lice v Lice“

Flyer 2 – Distribution through “Economics and Business” monthly

 

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Video – The gender wage gap in Macedonia through the perspectives of 5 women

 

Fostering female self-sustainability through embedding traditional values into alternative touristic attractions in Krushevo

The main objective of the project is to improve self-sustainability of women through development of alternative touristic attractions out of their skills for traditional, homemade and ecological production: embroider linen, knittings, wild berry jams, pasta peeling and grains, natural tea and the like.

Project activities envisage: training of Krushevo women for skills for entrepreneurship, promotion and sales of traditional products, expanding and strengthening the mini-cluster developed within the previous project, developing of three alternative touristic attractions embedding traditional values and promotional campaign involving an event “Days of alternative touristic attractions in Krushevo” and the Fair “It’s homemade, it’s from Krushevo…”. Designed in this way, the project offers an innovative way of combining social entrepreneurship and sustainable tourism, into an individual business model for women’s self-sufficiency.

 

Donor: US Embassy Skopje

Duration: 2015-2016 (10 months)

 

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Call for female participation October 2015 – Call – Application

Workshop for designing alternative touristic attractions, Krushevo, 25-26 December 2015 – Gallery

Piloting of “Botanic tour” and “Aronia grove”, Krushevo, 28 May 2016 – Gallery

Piloting of “Churches from Krushevo and a Vlach house – religion, arts, colors”, Krushevo, 05 June 2016 – Gallery

Brochure: “Krushevo is more beautiful on foot…”

Video: “Krushevo is more beautiful on foot…”

Krushevo woman – Fan page

Tour: Botanic walk, Krushevo, 30 July 2016 – Gallery

Tour: Aronia plantation, Krushevo, 30 July 2016 – Gallery

Fair of traditional, homemade, ecologic products “It’s homemade, it’s from Krushevo…”, Krushevo, 31 July 2016 – Gallery

Tour:”Churches from Krushevo and a Vlach house – religion, arts, colors”, Krushevo, 31 July 2016 – Gallery

 

Local development or current expenditures: What purpose are municipal money spent for?

 

The main objective of the project is to increase the transparency and efficiency of the use of budget funds within municipalities.

Short-term goals include:

  • Increasing the awareness of citizens about the budget spending in the municipalities;
  • Raising the awareness of citizens about the effectiveness of the spending of the budgetary funds in their municipality, compared to other municipalities;
  • Identifying the purpose of the budget spending: development goals or current consumption.

The research covers the 15 largest, according to residents, municipalities in Macedonia.

 

Donor: Metamorphosis Foundation, in partnership with MCET and Reactor, within IPA Civil Society Facility.

Duration: 2014 (5 months)

 

Web tool “Sledi gi parite”

Analysis – Working paper

Policy brief 8: Local development or current consumption: For what purpose are municipal money spent for?

 

Does motherhood explain part of the gender wage gap in Macedonia?

The objective of the research is to estimate the contribution of the motherhood wage gap for the gender wage gap in Macedonia after considering workers’ characteristics and selectivity bias onto the labour market, for childbearing-age population.

In particular, we aim to disentangle to which extent the natural role of women to have and raise children potentially affects the gender wage gap. Recent study (Petreski et al. 2014) estimated the adjusted gender wage gap in Macedonia at 5.7%. However, motherhood may still explain some portion of this gap and the preliminary descriptive analyses suggest that it likely biases the gap upwards. This suggests that once motherhood wage gap has been considered, the unexplained adjusted gender wage gap in Macedonia (gender wage discrimination) may be even lower. The literature is abundant in analysing selectivity-corrected gender wage gaps and motherhood wage gaps separately, but merging the two literatures, and estimating these gaps together and at the same time correcting them for selectivity is rare. Hence, we propose a novel methodological approach to tacking this issue. Namely, we will estimate the gaps by employing a repeated imputation technique, which will impute the wages of those who are unemployed or inactive by making assumption on their position with respect to the median wage. Then the imputed samples will be compared to the base sample and the size of the selectivity bias obtained. The fairly standard Heckman estimates will be provided for comparison. Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition will be then applied to the imputed sample to disentangle the explained and unexplained parts of the gender and motherhood wage gaps, giving a figure of the contribution of the latter in the former. Non-parametric alternatives to the decomposition will be pursued as robustness checks. The Survey of Income and Living Conditions (2010) will be used.

 

Provider: CERGE-EI and Global Development Network (RRC-15)

Duration: 1 year (2015)

 

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Presentation at CERGE-EI / GDN Workshop, Prague, August 16-17, 2015

Working paper

 

Mind the gaps between the budget lines and the programs of the National strategy for poverty reduction

The project aims to increase the effectiveness and usage of poverty-reduction programs by increasing the transparency of the associated budget lines and informing the citizens about them.

Short-term goals:

  • Identification and mapping of the weak links between the budget lines and the poverty-reduction programs;
  •  Increasing citizens’ awareness of the programs for poverty reduction they can be eligible for;
  • Increasing the awareness of the civil and research sector of the effectiveness of poverty-reduction programs’ implementation (budget expenditure).

 

Provider: USAID and Foundation Open Society Macedonia

Duration: 2013-2014 (10 months)

 

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(1)Policy brief: “How to increase the effectiveness and utilization of the programs for poverty reduction?”

Response by the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy

Mini-interview for the national bi-lingual Alsat-M

Thematic Graphometrix

Article in the magazine Face in Face

 

 

 

 

Booklet: Mind the gaps between the budget lines and the programs of the National Strategy for Poverty Reduction MKD version – ALB version

Thematic web site: www.siromastija.mk