TIRANA, Oct. 25 – High levels of unemployment, poverty and low access to economic opportunities has strengthened the inequalities between men and women in Albania during the last two decades of the socioeconomic and institutional transformations taking place in Albania, according to a study by the United Nations office in Albania.
Examining the economic diversification for women living in Albanian rural areas, the UN report shows women face discrimination when it comes to land rights, labour market participation, education and training, access to financial support and agriculture advisory services.
The main issue regarding gender equality with regard to access to assets in rural areas is land rights. While the legal framework is not discriminative towards women, the application of legal norms in rural areas is frequently unsatisfactory, says the report.
“I had no idea, my husband just went to apply for the certificate and it came out on his name,” the report quotes on condition of anonymity a 45-year-old woman from Dvoran village, Korà§a, southeast Albania.
The study shows more than 80 percent of land titles in Albania rural areas are named after current or former male heads of households and suggests awareness campaigns about legislation on women’s land rights and promoting gender equality.
“The distorted application of the legal framework norms and regulation is rooted in the poorly organized and implemented process of land distribution in the early 1990s, the prevalence of customary rights, as well as the low awareness of the rural population on land rights,” shows the report.
The report also finds that the weak role of women in contributing to family income increases their propensity to be involved in unpaid work and be responsible for domestic chores.
The traditional role of men as breadwinners is still dominant in rural Albania with only 7 percent of women stating that they contribute more than half of the money in the household.
“Women contribute significantly to farm activities, but since men deal with commercialization of farm produce, it is perceived that such income comes from men. Cash management is also a prerogative of men. Men have more access to services and enjoy freedom to move and travel, while women are impeded by their routine work in agriculture and family chores,” shows the study.
The report also shows that remote rural women face higher unemployment rates compared to men and are clearly discouraged from seeking off-farm jobs, mostly working informally.
“Whatever the job is, it’s never well-paid. I have been working for three months now, at an agro-processing company. I get paid 750 lek (€6) for eight hours, which is less than 100 lek (€0.8) per hour, and I cannot even move my head for eight hours in a row. Of course, there is no social insurance. If you don’t want it, you can go home,” the report quotes a 47-year-old women from the northern Albanian region of Malesi e Madhe as saying.
The report shows women’s access to advisory services and vocational training education is constrained by patriarchal perceptions concerning the participation and role of women, improper venues and time for meetings and a male dominance in the advisory services staff.
“No agronomist has advised us about how to take care of tobacco. We have become agronomists by our own means. Officially, we have an agronomist, he gets paid by the agriculture directory, but he never shows up here,” women in northern Albania regions are quoted as saying in the report.
An earlier report by FAO, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, has shown Albania’s rural women are overrepresented in informal employment, unpaid work in family farming and domestic and reproductive activities.
Stereotypical attitudes and practices in rural areas also remain widespread.
“In family farming, there is a rigid gender-based distribution of tasks. Male gender roles are associated with tasks that involve control over agricultural assets, mobility and decision-making, and female gender roles are associated with manual work in agriculture and livestock, including pre-harvest and post-harvest activities, food processing and household tasks. This distribution of labour has resulted in women’s limited access to, and control over, agricultural assets and decision-making,” says FAO.
Gender gap narrows
Albania climbed a huge 24 steps to rank 38th among 144 global economies and become the Western Balkans best performer in the 2017 Global Gender Gap, a report measuring the gap between men and women in economic participation, educational attainment, health and survival rates as well political involvement.
The 2017 rating, when Albania registered its best ever ranking 12 years after the annual World Economic Forum report was first published, was mainly dedicated to major progress in women’s political empowerment following a sharp increase in women MPs and women holding ministerial positions ahead of the mid-2017 general elections.
The report however shows Albania still has a lot to do in narrowing gender gaps in educational attainment and economic participation and opportunity.
“Gender parity is fundamental to whether and how economies and societies thrive. Ensuring the full development and appropriate deployment of half of the world’s total talent pool has a vast bearing on the growth, competitiveness and future-readiness of economies and businesses worldwide,” says the 2017 Global Gender Gap index.
