In the Republic of Moldova, nine in ten women with children do not work. It is estimated that the women spend about three times more time on housework and childcare than the men, even if fathers also have the possibility of benefiting from childcare leave. In 2019, fewer than 8,000 men profited from this opportunity. As a result, the women either do not manage to realize their potential in career or choose to have fewer children than they would like to. This has an impact on the families, the economy and whole society.
The data were presented in a webinar on creating family-friendly and gender inclusive workplaces – an international perspective for Moldova.
“By this webinar, UNFPA launched a broad experience exchange program for local companies within which we will borrow good practices on family friendly workplaces from multinational companies. UNFPA facilitates learning programs for companies and supports know how in the field and assists businesses to adopt family friendly policies,” said Nelea Rusu, coordinator of the UNFPA project for the Republic of Moldova, being quoted by IPN.
“To make workplaces friendlier, UNFPA, with the assistance of the Austrian Development Cooperation, set the goal of assisting the Government and private companies from the Republic of Moldova to extend family friendly policies and practices.”
This webinar opened a series of events scheduled to take place this autumn and was organized within the Project “Expanding Choices: Gender-Responsive Family Policies for the Private Sector in the Western Balkans and Moldova”, funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and implemented by the UNFPA in partnership with the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection and with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
These activities support systemic interventions in the country to respond to new demographic realities helping families and couples meet their child expectations through gender equality policies and better opportunities to ensure work-life balance. Expanding choices through gender-responsive family policies is an initiative which seeks to raise awareness about knowledge, ideas, strategies and tools for private sector companies, the Government and society at large.
In today’s webinar, representatives of a number of foreign companies that promote policies to create family friendly workplaces made presentations.
