Tag: gender inequality

Making Agricultural Policy Work for Women in Armenia

Posted on October 29, 2026 | Policy Brief

Agriculture employs more Armenian women than any other sector, yet the country’s agricultural policy has almost no gender dimension. The 2020–2030 agricultural strategy names gender equality as a guiding principle, but the programs that deliver subsidies, credit, and machinery neither target women nor track whether they benefit. Drawing on a 2024–2025 survey of 201 women with access to land in Lori, Tavush and Vayots Dzor, this brief shows that women are active in every phase of farming, but limited access to machinery, finance, inputs and infrastructure holds back their productivity and earnings. Many also farm land that is not legally theirs, which can shut them out of support altogether. We propose ways to raise productivity on the land women already farm and to help them earn more from it.

Why Agriculture Matters for Women’s Economic Empowerment

Armenia’s position in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index improved from 102nd in 2016 to 59th (of 148 countries) in 2025, but it ranks only 91st on economic participation and opportunity (World Economic Forum, 2025). The remaining gender gaps lie mostly in the economy, and Armenian women’s potential remains underused. The government has made closing these gaps an explicit goal. Its Strategy and Action Plan for the Implementation of Gender Policy for 2025–2028 lists women’s socioeconomic and labor market advancement among its six priorities (Government of the Republic of Armenia, 2025b).

Agricultural policy is one of the strongest levers available to reach that goal. Agriculture remains vital to livelihoods and food security in rural Armenia, home to 36% of the population (Armstat, 2024), and in 2025 accounted for 7.9% of GDP (Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Armenia, 2026). It is also the single largest employer of women: 31.2% of employed women work in agriculture, compared with 23.3% of employed men (World Bank, 2025).

Nearly all of this work is informal. In 2024, 96.3% of women employed in agriculture worked informally, approximately 89,100 women (Armstat, 2025). The origins of this informality lie largely in policy design rather than gender, notably the tax exemption on income from selling one’s own farm produce (Tax Code of the Republic of Armenia, 2016). Because this income is untaxed, most farm households have no reason to register as businesses, so their farm work is never formally recorded. According to international statistical standards, people who work in an unregistered household farm, or who help on a family farm without pay, are counted as informally employed. The consequences, however, fall more heavily on women, because a larger share of working women than men depend on farming. Informal status leaves workers outside pension accumulation, social protection and formal credit histories, and renders them largely invisible to program targeting.

The sector also produces far below its potential. Government assessments behind the 2020–2030 agricultural strategy found that in 2018 nearly half of Armenia’s arable land was uncultivated or used inefficiently (Government of the Republic of Armenia, 2019). Recent reporting suggests the pattern persists (Pamorama.am, 2026). Land ownership adds a further barrier. When land was privatized in the early 1990s, it was allotted to rural citizens regardless of sex, but it was registered in the name of the “head of household”, who was usually a man. Since then, mostly male long-term labor migration, together with widowhood and divorce, has left 26.5% of rural households headed by women (FAO, 2017). Yet the land often remains in the name of an absent husband or his family.

Traditions widen the gap. In patrilocal marriages, which are common in rural areas, a bride moves in with her husband’s family, and women rarely claim their share of land from either family for fear of seeming confrontational. Many women who manage farms therefore do not formally own the land they work on, and they lose what documented ownership brings: access to credit, farm equipment and technical knowledge (FAO, 2017). Rural women also spend over six hours a day on unpaid household duties, more than urban women and roughly twice as much as rural men, leaving less time for productive and commercial activities (FAO, 2017).

This brief asks how agricultural policy can serve Armenia’s gender equality goals. We show that agricultural support programs are not designed with women in mind, use a survey of women who farm to identify what limits their productivity and earnings, and propose policy recommendations.

Agricultural Policy: Gender-Aware on Paper, Gender-Blind in Practice

The Strategy of the Main Directions Ensuring Economic Development in the Agricultural Sector of the Republic of Armenia for 2020–2030 commits to inclusive growth and names gender equality among its guiding principles (Government of the Republic of Armenia, 2019). The 2025–2028 gender strategy, the EU’s Gender Action Plan III for Armenia, and donor programs such as UNDP’s Platform #5 point the same way. On paper, the policy framework is gender-aware. The gap lies in delivery. The programs that actually channel support to farmers contain few, if any, gender-specific design features, targets, or monitoring requirements. UN Women flagged this weakness in its 2018 gender assessment of agricultural policies (UN Women, 2018).

The current program cycle illustrates this: the toolset for agricultural support is rich, yet none of it is designed with women in mind. The Government’s 2025 crop support program reimburses 50% of cultivation costs for grain, legume, and fodder crops, up to 11 million AMD per beneficiary, with a budget of about 1.5 billion AMD (Government of the Republic of Armenia, 2025a). Moreover, for 2026, agriculture accounts for most of the Ministry of Economy budget, at 74.5 billion AMD, including 10.1 billion AMD for the agricultural development assistance program (Finport.am, 2025). Interest rate subsidies on agricultural loans and machinery leasing form another major channel, and a separate state program supports intensive orchards and higher-value crops through affordable loans and partial compensation for modern irrigation systems and anti-hail nets (Government of the Republic of Armenia, 2019).

However, none of these instruments target women, and their design fits poorly with the constraints women face. Cost reimbursement and credit subsidies assume documented land use or ownership and the cash to pay expenses up front; leasing assumes a credit record that informal workers without registered assets cannot show. Where land is registered to a male household head, as privatization usually left it, a woman may be unable to apply in her own name even when she does most of the work on the land (FAO, 2017).

Data on agricultural lending or subsidy uptake broken down by sex is not publicly available, so the size of any gender gap in access cannot be measured directly. However, the eligibility rules give good reason to expect one, and the missing data are part of the problem.

More generally, there is no recent comprehensive research on Armenia’s agricultural sector, and its gender dimensions in particular. This gap is striking given the sector’s importance to employment, rural livelihoods and food security, and the large number of women involved in agricultural work.

Evidence from Women Who Farm

Because official sex-disaggregated data on agricultural support is lacking, this section turns to evidence from women farmers themselves. It examines three questions: what prevents their land from being fully cultivated, what support they report needing, and whether their current crop choices limit their earnings. We draw on a survey of women with access to land, conducted in 2024–2025 by R-Insights LLC for UNDP Armenia’s Platform #5 program, which is funded by the Austrian Development Agency (UNDP Armenia, 2025). Telephone interviews (CATI) were held with 201 women in Lori (70), Tavush (79), and Vayots Dzor (52). The survey asked about land-use competitive advantages, skills and capacities, support needs, and household characteristics. Questions on why land goes uncultivated were only asked to 65 respondents whose land was not cultivated or not fully cultivated.

This evidence has certain limits. The survey covers women only, so it cannot show whether the constraints it documents differ by gender, or whether land farmed by women is cultivated less often than land farmed by men. The survey includes only women who hold land ownership rights, whether as sole owners, co-owners, or both, and includes respondents from only three provinces.

Women are Engaged Across the Entire Cultivation Cycle

Women report near-universal engagement in every phase of land cultivation, from 91% in the preparatory phase, such as acquiring seeds, to 97% after the harvest, in storage, sales and marketing (Table 1). The image of the woman as a marginal “helper” in family farming is not supported by the data: women are full participants, including in its commercial side. The policy question, then, is not how to bring women into agriculture, but what prevents them from getting more economic value from the land and effort they already invest.

Table 1. Women’s engagement in different phases of land cultivation

Phase of land cultivation Engaged
Pre-cultivation phase (e.g., acquisition of seeds and inputs) 91%
Cultivation works proper 95%
Post-cultivation phase (harvest storage, sale, and marketing) 97%

Source: UNDP Armenia (2025). CATI survey, N=201. Question QA6. Translated from Armenian by the authors.

The Productivity Challenge: What Keeps Land from Full Use

Among women whose land is not cultivated or is only partially cultivated, the main reason is limited access to agricultural machinery (37%). Others say they use the land as a hayfield (31%), that cultivation costs outweigh the benefits (22%), that they cannot obtain seeds (20%), or that irrigation water is a problem (17%) (Figure 1). Notably, 9% point to the land’s location near the border, a security constraint specific to Armenia. Apart from hayfield use, nearly all of these causes can be addressed by policy: access to machinery, input supply, irrigation, and the economics of farming.

Figure 1. Reasons for not cultivating land, or not cultivating it fully

Source: UNDP Armenia (2025). CATI survey, subsample N=65. Up to two responses per respondent; totals exceed 100%. End labels show the survey’s combined (first + second reason) figures; components may differ by 1 p.p. due to rounding.

Women’s stated needs closely match these constraints. Asked what support would improve their agricultural activity, 91% named technical assistance (machinery and equipment), 78% financial assistance, 52% infrastructure improvement, and 34% improved market access (Figure 2). Only 1% said they needed no support. In short, the main barrier is not willingness to farm but access to the resources needed to farm efficiently.

Figure 2. Areas of support needed to improve agricultural activity

Source: UNDP Armenia (2025). CATI survey, N=201. Respondents named up to three priorities; totals exceed 100%. Translated from Armenian by the authors.

The Value Challenge: Earning More from the Same Land

The production profile of surveyed women points to a second challenge. The crops women most often grow on their largest plots are wheat (36%), potato (30%), cucumber (25%), beans (24%), grapes (18%), and persimmon (17%) (UNDP Armenia, 2025). Wheat and potatoes earn little per hectare.

According to the estimates by Gevorg Papoyan, the Minister of Economy, a hectare of irrigated wheat yields about 400,000 AMD worth of grain at a cost of about 420,000 AMD, and the government promotes intensive horticulture as the more profitable path (panorama.am, 2024). Helping women farm more efficiently is therefore only part of the task. The other part is supporting a gradual shift toward higher-value production, through better information on profitable crops, improved varieties, irrigation, modern production methods, storage and processing, and links to markets.

This also shows why the 2025 crop support program needs a gender lens. Because many of these women grow wheat and beans, they fall squarely within its target group. Yet women who farm land registered to a husband or his family may be unable to claim the subsidy, so the women the program should reach may be the very ones its rules exclude. And while the subsidy serves food security, on its own it keeps farmers growing crops that earn little; women also need a way into the programs that support higher-value production.

Concluding Remarks and Recommendations

Armenia’s agricultural strategy promises inclusive, gender-equal growth, and its gender strategy promises women’s economic advancement. The evidence assembled here shows that rural women are already doing the work across every phase of cultivation, while the state’s growing agricultural support budget flows through instruments that cannot see them. Adapting existing programs to the constraints women report, and helping women earn more from the land they already farm, would advance gender equality and address one of Armenian agriculture’s central inefficiencies: the underuse of nearly half its arable land.

Our recommendations fall into two groups: raise productivity on the land women already farm and help women earn more from their land. Most recommendations are addressed to the Ministry of Economy and its implementing agencies; those on extension, cooperatives and the gender strategy also concern the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and development partners.

First, open a dedicated route to machinery for women farmers. The machinery leasing subsidy could accept applicants without land collateral and support community machinery pools and service cooperatives that women can use. Uptake should be tracked by sex; if a gap is confirmed, reserved quotas or preferential terms would be justified. The economic case for equal access to inputs is among the most robust findings in development economics: Udry (1996) showed that reallocating productive inputs from men’s to women’s plots within the same household would raise output by about 6%. Theis et al. (2018) show that small-scale technologies raise women’s productivity only when programs address who controls the technology, not merely whether it is available.

Second, design financial instruments that do not depend on collateral, such as credit guarantees, blends of grants and loans, and group lending for women producers. Fletschner (2009) shows that women’s credit constraints are distinct from men’s and shaped by household dynamics rather than farm fundamentals, which means that gender-neutral credit products tend to miss women. Randomized evaluations of expanded microcredit access across six countries find consistent, if modest, increases in business activity and investment (Banerjee et al., 2015), while Ashraf et al. (2010) show that a savings product designed around women’s constraints increased their say in household decisions.

Third, invest in irrigation and rural infrastructure where women report these constraints, and include communities near the border in support that reduces risk. Irrigation problems are among the main reasons women leave land uncultivated (17%), and over half of respondents ask for better infrastructure (52%). Such investment should also be open to women who farm without formal title. Access to irrigation raised household consumption, asset accumulation, and informal insurance in Mali (Dillon, 2011).

Fourth, to help women earn more from their land, bring farm advice to women through women extension agents and digital tools. This means recruiting and training women as advisers in public extension services and building modules for women farmers into digital programs such as FAO’s Digital Villages Initiative in Lori and Tavush, backed by digital literacy training. In a randomized experiment in Mozambique, adding trained women to extension networks reduced the gender bias in the spread of sustainable land management techniques and even led male extension workers to reach more women (Kondylis et al., 2016). BenYishay et al. (2020) find that women are as effective as men at passing on agricultural technologies but are perceived as less capable, so the binding constraint is institutional support, not ability. Digital tools can also lower the cost of delivering such advice considerably (Aker, 2011).

Finally, help women move toward higher-value crops and stronger markets. Support for producer groups, aggregation, shared storage and processing, and links to buyers would help women sell more and keep more of the value, building on initiatives such as UNDP’s Platform #5. Simpler application rules, outreach through women’s groups and technical help in the first seasons would make the state program for intensive orchards and higher-value crops easier for women to use. Membership in banana producer cooperatives in Kenya raised household income substantially (Fischer and Qaim, 2012).

Acknowledgments: The authors thank Zhanna Harutyunyan, Gender Equality Portfolio Manager at UNDP Armenia, for providing access to UNDP Armenia data on women in the agricultural sector.

References

  • Aker, J. C. (2011). Dial “A” for agriculture: a review of information and communication technologies for agricultural extension in developing countries. Agricultural Economics, 42(6), 631–647.
  • Ashraf, N., Karlan, D., & Yin, W. (2010). Female empowerment: Impact of a commitment savings product in the Philippines. World Development, 38(3), 333–344.
  • BenYishay, A., Jones, M., Kondylis, F., & Mobarak, A. M. (2020). Gender gaps in technology diffusion. Journal of Development Economics, 143, 102380.
  • Dillon, A. (2011). The effect of irrigation on poverty reduction, asset accumulation, and informal insurance: Evidence from Northern Mali. World Development, 39(12), 2165–2175.
  • European Union. (2021). Gender Action Plan III: Country-level implementation plan – Armenia.
  • Finport.am. (2025). 39.4 billion drams to be allocated for agricultural programs in Armenia in 2026.
  • Fischer, E., & Qaim, M. (2012). Linking smallholders to markets: Determinants and impacts of farmer collective action in Kenya. World Development, 40(6), 1255–1268.
  • Fletschner, D. (2009). Rural women’s access to credit: Market imperfections and intrahousehold dynamics. World Development, 37(3), 618–631.
  • Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (FAO) (2017). Gender, agriculture and rural development in Armenia: Country gender assessment.
  • Government of the Republic of Armenia. (2019). Strategy of the main directions ensuring economic development in the agricultural sector of the Republic of Armenia for 2020–2030 (Decision No. 1886-L, Annex).
  • Government of the Republic of Armenia. (2025a). State support programme for the cultivation of grain, legume and fodder crops.
  • Government of the Republic of Armenia. (2025b). Strategy and action plan for the implementation of gender policy in the Republic of Armenia, 2025–2028.
  • Kondylis, F., Mueller, V., Sheriff, G., & Zhu, S. (2016). Do female instructors reduce gender bias in diffusion of sustainable land management techniques? Experimental evidence from Mozambique. World Development, 78, 436–449.
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  • Panorama.am. (2026, February 21). Nearly half of Armenia’s arable land lies uncultivated, analyst warns.
  • Panorama.am. (2024, September 26). Wheat production in Armenia unprofitable, economy minister says.
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  • Statistical Committee of the Republic of Armenia [Armstat]. (2025). Informal employment, 2024.
  • Tax Code of the Republic of Armenia (2016, HO-165-N), provisions on income from the sale of agricultural products.
  • Theis, S., Lefore, N., Meinzen-Dick, R., & Bryan, E. (2018). What happens after technology adoption? Gendered aspects of small-scale irrigation technologies in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Tanzania. Agriculture and Human Values, 35(3), 671–684.
  • Udry, C. (1996). Gender, agricultural production, and the theory of the household. Journal of Political Economy, 104(5), 1010–1046.
  • United Nations Development Programme. (UNDP) (2025). Survey of women landowners in rural Armenia [Survey conducted by R-Insights LLC].
  • UN Women. (2018). Gender assessment of rural development and agriculture policies in Armenia.
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  • World Economic Forum. (2025). Global gender gap report 2025.

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes. AI tools may have been used in the preparation of this brief. Where used, they were applied responsibly and in accordance with appropriate scientific and ethical standards. The authors and editor remain fully responsible for their respective contributions to the brief.

Անդրադառնալով չվարձատրվող խնամքին՝ ընտանիքամետ քաղաքականություններ Հայաստանի համար

Posted on September 29, 2026 | Policy Brief

Չվարձատրվող խնամքի աշխատանքը Հայաստանի խնամքի տնտեսության հիմնասյուներից է, որն ապահովում է ընտանիքների բարեկեցությունը, նպաստում մարդկային զարգացմանը և հիմք հանդիսանում հասարակության բնականոն գործունեության համար։ Այդ ամենով հանդերձ, չվարձատրվող խնամքի աշխատանքը շարունակում է մեծապես անտեսված մնալ տնտեսության ոլորտին վերաբերող քաղաքականության մշակման գործընթացներում և անհամաչափորեն ընկնել կանանց ուսերին՝ դրանով իսկ սահմանափակելով նրանց մասնակցությունն աշխատաշուկայում և խորացնելով գենդերային անհավասարությունները։ Հաշվի առնելով, որ Հայաստանը բախվում է բնակչության ծերացման, աշխատուժի կրճատման և խնամքի աճող կարիքների մարտահրավերների, խնամքի տնտեսության ճանաչումն ու դրանում ներդրումներ կատարելը դարձել են ինչպես ժողովրդագրական, այնպես էլ տնտեսական հրամայական։

Հայաստանի վերաբերյալ առկա վերջին տվյալների, այդ թվում՝ Ազգային փոխանցումային հաշիվների (ԱՓՀ) (National Transfer Accounts, NTA) և Ազգային փոխանցումային հաշիվների ժամանակային վերլուծության (National Time Transfer Accounts, NTTA) հետազոտությունների համաձայն, ինչպես նաև միջազգային փորձի վրա հիմնվելով՝ սույն քաղաքականության համառոտագիրն ուսումնասիրում է, թե ինչպես կարող են ընտանիքամետ քաղաքականություններն օժանդակել չվարձատրվող խնամքի աշխատանքի ճանաչմանը, կրճատմանը և վերաբաշխմանը։ Սրանով ընդգծվում է, որ երեխաների խնամքի ծառայությունների ընդլայնումը, ծնողական պարտականությունների համատեղ իրականացման խթանումը, ընտանիքամետ աշխատավայրերի ձևավորումը և խնամքի ոլորտի ներառումը ազգային քաղաքականության պլանավորման գործընթացներում կարող են խթանել կանանց մասնակցությունը տնտեսության ոլորտում, բարելավել ընտանիքների բարեկեցությունը և ամրապնդել ժողովրդագրական դիմակայունությունը։ Հետևաբար, խնամքի տնտեսության մեջ ներդրումը ոչ միայն գենդերային հավասարության ապահովման հարց է, այլ նաև Հայաստանի կայուն և ռազմավարական ներդրում ներառական զարգացման մեջ։

Չվարձատրվող Խնամքի Կարևորությունը Հայաստանում

Հայաստանն անցնում է ժողովրդագրական խորքային փոփոխությունների միջով, որոնք բնութագրվում են բնակչության պարզ վերարտադրությունն ապահովող մակարդակից ցածր ծնելիությամբ, բնակչության ծերացմամբ, շարունակական արտագաղթով և աշխատունակ տարիքի բնակչության քանակի կրճատմամբ (Հայաստանի վիճակագրական կոմիտե, 2025): Այս միտումները մեծացնում են ճնշումն աշխատաշուկաների, սոցիալական պաշտպանության համակարգերի և հանրային ֆինանսների վրա՝ միևնույն ժամանակ ընդգծելով երկրի մարդկային կապիտալի լիարժեք իրացնելու կարևորությունը: Այս համատեքստում տնտեսության ոլորտում կանանց մասնակցության ամրապնդումը ոչ միայն գենդերային հավասարության, այլև ժողովրդագրական և տնտեսական հրամայական է:

Չվարձատրվող խնամքի աշխատանքն այս մարտահրավերի առանցքային մաս է կազմում: Տնային տնտեսություններն օրեցօր ավելի ու ավելի են ապավինում երեխաների, տարեցների և հաշմանդամություն ունեցող անձանց չվարձատրվող խնամքին և տնային աշխատանքներին: Թեև այս գործունեություններն էական դեր են կազմում սոցիալական և տնտեսական բարեկեցության համար, դրանք հիմնականում մնում են անտեսված ավանդական տնտեսական ոլորտի վիճակագրություններում և շարունակում են մեծամասամբ իրականացվել կանանց կողմից (Ամերիա կառավարման խորհրդատվական ծառայություն և ՄԱԿ-ի բնակչության հիմնադրամ): Արդյունքում, կանայք կրում են խնամքի պարտականությունների անհամաչափ մեծ բեռը, որը սահմանափակում է նրանց մասնակցությունը վարձատրվող աշխատանքում, կրճատում կյանքի ընթացքում նրանց վաստակումները, խոչընդոտում կարիերայի առաջխաղացմանը և նպաստում աշխատաշուկայում շարունակաբար նկատվող գենդերային անհավասարություններին: Վերջին ժողովրդագրական տվյալները ցույց են տալիս, որ Հայաստանի ապագա բարգավաճումն ավելի շատ կախված կլինի մարդկանց կյանքում ներդրումներ անելուց և կյանքի ու ընտանիքի բալանսավորումն ապահովող աշխատանքային պայմաններ ստեղծելուց, այլ ոչ բնակչության քանակի ավելացումից: Ընտանիքամետ քաղաքականությունները, այդ թվում՝ երեխայի խնամքի մատչելի ծառայություններն ու արձակուրդի հավասար հնարավորությունները, ճկուն աշխատանքային պայմանները և հավասարապես բաշխված ծնողական խնամքը խթանող միջոցների առկայությունը, կարող են նպաստել կանանց աշխատանքի անցնելու արգելքների նվազեցմանը՝ միևնույն ժամանակ աջակցելով ընտանիքներին իրենց վերարտադրման մտադրությունների իրագործման հարցում (Fluchtmann, van Veen,& Adema, 2023):

Չվարձատրվող խնամքի աշխատանքի ճանաչումը, կրճատումը և վերաբաշխումը պետք է այսուհետ դառնան Հայաստանի ժողովրդագրական և սոցիալ-տնտեսական քաղաքականության օրակարգի առանցքային բաղադրիչ: Խնամքի տնտեսության մեջ ներդրումները զուտ սոցիալական բարեկեցության ապահովման միջոց չեն. դրանք մարդկային կապիտալի, աշխատանքի արդյունավետության, գենդերային հավասարության և երկարաժամկետ ժողովրդագրական դիմակայունության մեջ ռազմավարական ներդրում են: Խնամքի հետ կապված 3  դիտարկումներն աշխատանքին, ժողովրդագրական և սոցիալական պաշտպանությանը վերաբերող քաղաքականություններում ներառելով՝ Հայաստանը կարող է ավելի հաջող կերպով արձագանքել բնակչության ծերացման մարտահրավերներին՝ միևնույն ժամանակ ամրապնդելով ներառական և կայուն տնտեսական զարգացումը:

Ինչ Են Վկայում Տվյալները

Հայաստանի վերջին Ազգային փոխանցումային հաշիվները (NTA ) (2024) և Ազգային փոխանցումային հաշիվների ժամանակային վերլուծությունը (NTTA) (2026) ծանրակշիռ ապացույց են ներկայացնում առ այն, որ չվարձատրվող խնամքի աշխատանքը հանդիսանում է երկրի մեծագույն, թեև առավել քիչ ճանաչելի տնտեսական աղբյուրներից մեկը: Ազգային աշխատաշուկաների վիճակագրական տվյալների հետ մեկտեղ այս արդյունքները ցույց են տալիս, որ չվարձատրվող խնամքի անհամաչափ բաշխումը ոչ միայն գենդերային հավասարության, այլև՝ տնտեսական արդյունավետության, աշխատուժի մասնակցության և ժողովրդագրական դիմակայունության սահմանափակում են (Հայաստանի Հանրապետության վիճակագրական կոմիտե):

Գծապատկեր 1. Չվարձատրվող խնամքի աշխատանքը Հայաստանում. հիմնական փաստեր

Sources: UNFPA (2024, 2026), National Transfer Accounts (NTA), National Time Transfer Accounts (NTTA); National Statistical Committee of Armenia (2025); OECD, UN Women, ILO, ESCAP.

Չվարձատրվող խնամքի աշխատանքը Հայաստանում. հիմնական փաստեր

  1. Կանայք չվարձատրվող խնամքի շատ ավելի մեծ ծավալի աշխատանք են իրականացնում՝ կանանց համար շաբաթական 24.1 ժամ, տղամարդկանց համար՝ 6.3 ժամ Հայաստանում կանայք իրականացնում են շաբաթական 24.1 ժամ չվարձատրվող խնամքի աշխատանք, իսկ տղամարդիկ՝ 6.3 ժամ:
  2. Կանայք զգալիորեն ավելի շատ ժամանակ են ծախսում երեխայի խնամքի վրա. 3.8 անգամ ավելի շատ ժամանակ երեխայի խնամքի վրա: Կանայք երեխայի խնամքի վրա տղամարդկանցից 3.8 անգամ ավելի շատ ժամանակ են ծախսում:
  3. Չվարձատրվող խնամքը Հայաստանի տնտեսության էական մասն է կազմում: ՀՆԱ-ի 16.8%-46.9%-ը: Չվարձատրվող խնամքի աշխատանքը կազմում է ՀՆԱ-ի 16.8%-46.9%-ը:
  4. Կանայք իրացնում են չվարձատրվող խնամքի տնտեսական արժեքի գերակշռող մասը: Չվարձատրվող խնամքի տնտեսական արժեքի 80%-ն իրացվում է կանանց կողմից: Կանայք իրացնում են չվարձատրվող խնամքի տնտեսական արժեքի մոտավորապես 80%-ը:
  5. Կանանց մասնակցությունը տնտեսության մեջ շարունակում է մնալ սահմանափակ: Կանանց 51%-ը շարունակում է մնալ տնտեսապես ոչ ակտիվ՝ չնայած բարձրագույն կրթության առկայությանը: (2x)
  6. Բնակչության ծերացումը զգալիորեն կնպաստի խնամքի ծառայությունների պահանջի աճին: (2x) Խնամքի տնտեսության մեջ ներդրումը նշանակում է գենդերային հավասարության, տնտեսական աճի և Հայաստանի ժողովրդագրական դիմակայունության մեջ ներդրում կատարել: Աղբյուրներ՝ ՄԱԿ-ի Բնակչության հիմնադրամ (UNFPA). (2024, 2026), Ազգային փոխանցումային հաշիվներ (NTA), Ազգային ոխանցումային հաշիվների ժամանակային վերլուծություն (NTTA), Հայաստանի ազգային վիճակագրական կոմիտե (2025), Տնտեսական համագործակցության և զարգացման կազմակերպություն (OECD), ՄԱԿ կանայք, Աշխատանքի միջազգային կազմակերպություն (ILO) և Ասիայի և Խաղաղ օվկիանոսի տնտեսական և սոցիալական հանձնաժողով (ESCAP):

Չվարձատրվող խնամքը զգալի ներդրում ունի հայկական տնտեսության մեջ

NTTA ուսումնասիրությունը ցույց է տվել, որ Հայատանում կանայք շաբաթական 24.1 ժամ չվարձատրվող խնամքի և տնային տնտեսության աշխատանք են իրականացնում՝ ի տարբերություն այդ աշխատանքների վրա տղամարդկանց ծախսած 6.3 ժամի. այսինքն՝ գրեթե 4 անգամ ավելի շատ: Կանանց չվարձատրվող խնամքի պարտականությունները հասնում են գագաթնակետի՝ շաբաթական մոտավորապես 44-49 ժամ, 28-36 տարեկան հասակում, որը համընկնում է կարիերայում առավելագույն առաջխաղացումներ գրանցելու և ընտանիք կազմելու տարիների հետ: Այս համընկնումն ընդգծում է, թէ որքան են անհավասար խնամքի պարտականությունները կրճատում կանանց մասնակցությունը տնտեսության մեջ հենց այն ժամանակ, երբ նրանց ներդրումը աշխատաշուկայում առավել առանցքային է արտադրողականության և ժողովրդագրական դիմակայունության տեսանկյունից: Տնային գործերն այս աշխատանքի գերակա մասն են կազմում, մինչդեռ կանայք մոտավորապես 3.8 անգամ ավելի շատ ժամանակ են ծախսում երեխայի խնամքի վրա, քան տղամարդիկ: Այս անհավասար բաշխումը մասնավորապես սրվում է ծնողական տարիների գագաթնակետին (23-27 տարեկան հասակում), երբ կանայք ավելի քան տասը ժամ ավել են ծախսում երեխայի խնամքի վրա:

Այս աշխատանքին տնտեսական արժեք տալու պարագայում դրա ներդրումն անհնար է դառնում անտեսելը: Գնահատման մեթոդից կախված՝ չվարձատրվող խնամքը կազմում է Հայաստանի ՀՆԱ-ի 16.8-ից 46.9%-ը՝ գերազանցելով մի շարք խոշոր ֆորմալ սեկտորների, այդ թվում՝ արտադրության և առևտրի ոլորտների ցուցանիշներին: Կանայք արտադրում են այս տնտեսական արժեքի մոտավորապես 80%-ը՝ ընդգծելով, որ խնամքի տնտեսությունը շարունակում է մեծապես կախյալ մնալ կանանց չվարձատրվող աշխատանքից: Երբ այս աշխատանքին վերագրվում է տնտեսական արժեք, դրա ներդրումը անհնար է դառնում անտեսել: Գնահատման մեթոդից կախված (խնամքի համար ծախսվող ժամանակը գնահատվում է շուկայում դրա փոխարինման համար նախատեսված նվազագույն վարձատրությամբ կամ ավելի բարձր հնարավոր եկամուտների հիման վրա)՝ չվարձատրվող խնամքը կազմում է Հայաստանի ՀՆԱ-ի 16.8%-ից մինչև 46.9%-ը, մասնավորապես՝ինչն իր ծավալով գերազանցում է տնտեսության մի շարք խոշոր ոլորտներ, այդ թվում՝ արտադրությունն ու առևտուրը: Այս տնտեսական արժեքի մոտ 80%-ը ձևավորվում է կանանց կողմից, ինչը ցույց է տալիս, որ խնամքի տնտեսությունը շարունակում է գերազանցապես ապավինել կանանց չվարձատրվող աշխատանքին:

Չվարձատրվող խնամքը սահմանափակում է կանանց մասնակցությունը տնտեսության մեջ

Խնամքի պարտականությունների անհավասար բաշխումն ուղիղ հետևանքներ է թողնում աշխատաշուկայում կանանց մասնակցության վրա: ԱՓՀ-ի ուսումնասիրությունը ցույց է տալիս, որ ի տարբերություն տղամարդկանց, կանայք որևէ տարիքում չեն ունենում կյանքի ցիկլի դրական ավելցուկ, ինչը նշանակում է, որ կյանքի ցիկլի ոչ մի կետում կանանց եկամուտը չի գերազանցում դրա սպառման ծախսերը: Քանի որ ծանր չվարձատրվող խնամքի պարտականությունները սահմանափակում են կանանց վարձատրվող աշխատանքի հնարավությունները, նրանց հսկայական տնտեսական ներդրումը շարունակում է մնալ չհատուցվող պաշտոնական հաշիվներում:

Այս պատկերն արտացոլված է նաև ազգային աշխատաշուկայի վիճակագրական տվյալներում: Թեև կանայք բարձրագույն կրթության ոլորտում ավելի բարձր մասնակցություն ունեն, քան տղամարդիկ, կանանց 51%-ը շարունակում է մնալ տնտեսապես ոչ ակտիվ՝ ի համեմատ տղամարդկանց 29%-ի (Հայաստանի վիճակագրական կոմիտե, 2025): Կանայք նաև էականորեն թերներկայացված են ղեկավար և որոշում կայացնող պաշտոններում: Այս անհավասարությունները մատնանշում են, որ միայն կրթական մակարդակը հավասար տնտեսական հնարավորություններ ապահովելու համար բավարար չէ, երբ չվարձատրվող խնամքի պարտականությունները շարունակում են անհավասար բաշխվել:

Ժողովրդագրական Փոփոխությունները Մեծացնում Են Բարեփոխումների Հրատապությունը

Ակնկալվում է, որ բնակչության ծերացումը կմեծացնի խնամք ապահովելու պահանջը՝ միևնույն ժամանակ կրճատելով աշխատունակ տարիքի բնակչության քանակը (Lee, 2025): ԱՓՀ-ի կանխատեսումները վկայում են, որ միջսերնդային փոխանցումները շեղվում են երեխաների համար ներդրումներից դեպի տարեցներին աջակցության ապահովումը: Ըստ կանխատեսման՝ մինչև 2050թ. միջսերնդային փոխանցումների 60%-ը կուղղվի տարեցների աջակցությանը: Սա ենթադրում է ներկայիս միտումների ամբողջական շրջադարձ, որտեղ այժմ առաջնահերթություն է տրվում երեխաներին վերաբերող ներդրումներին: Առանց բարեփոխումների, որոնք կընդլայնեն խնամքի պաշտոնական ծառայությունները և կխթանեն աշխատաշուկայում կանանց ավելի մեծ մասնակցությունը,չվարձատրվող խնամքի աճող պահանջն ամենայն հավանականությամբ ավելի կխորացնի աշխատուժի պակասը՝լրացուցիչ բեռ դառնալով ընտանիքների և հանրային ֆինանսների համար։

Այս բացահայտումների ամբողջականությունը ցույց է տալիս, որ չվարձատրվող խնամքի աշխատանքը պետք է ճանաչվի որպես արդյունավետ տնտեսական գործունեություն, և ոչ մասնավոր տնային տնտեսությանն առնչվող պարտականություն: Հետևաբար, խնամքի անհավասար բաշխմանն անդրադառնալը ընտանիքամետ քաղաքականությունների միջոցով էական է ոչ միայն գենդերային հավասարության խթանման, այլև Հայաստանի տնտեսական դիմակայունության և երկարատև ժողովրդագրական կայունության համար:

Քաղաքականության ներկայիս բացերը

Հայաստանը ստեղծել է քաղաքականության կարևոր հիմք՝ անդրադառնալով ժողովրդագրական փոփոխություններին, գենդերային հավասարությանը, աշխատանքին և ընտանեկան բարեկեցությանը: «Հայաստանի Հանրապետության ժողովրդագրական իրավիճակի բարելավման 2024-2040 թվականների ռազմավարությունը», «Զբաղվածության 2025-2031 թվականների ռազմավարական ծրագիրը», «Հայաստանի Հանրապետությունում գենդերային քաղաքականության իրականացման 2025-2028 (Հայաստանի Հանրապետության կառավարություն, 2024) թվականների ռազմավարությունը» և ՀՀ աշխատանքային օրենսդրությունը (Հայաստանի Հանրապետության Ազգային ժողով, 2024) ճանաչում են ընտանիքների աջակցման, կանանց աշխատանքի խթանման և աշխատանք-կյանք բալանսի բարելավման կարևորությունը: Այս քաղաքականության շրջանակները, միասին վերցրած, ամուր հիմք են ստեղծում ընտանիքամետ քաղաքականությունների առաջխաղացման և ժողովրդագրական մարտահրավերներին արձագանքելու համար։

Այդուհանդերձ, իրագործման կարևոր բացերը շարունակում են սահմանափակել դրանց արդյունավետությունը: Մինչ մայրության պաշտպանությունը և երեխայի խնամքի կանանց արձակուրդը լավ կանոնակարգված են, հայրերի մասնակցությունը երեխայի խնամքին շարունակում է սահմանափակ մնալ հայրական արձակուրդի կարճ տևողության (5 աշխատանքային օր) և չփոխանցվող հատուկ արձակուրդի բացակայության պատճառով: Արդյունքում խնամքի պարտականությունները շարունակում են անհամամասնորեն մնալ կանանց ուսերին՝ վերահաստատելով գենդերային ավանդական դերերը և նպաստելով երեխայի ծնունդին հաջորդող կարիերայի ընդհատումներին։

Երեխայի խնամքի մատչելի և բարձրորակ ծառայությունների հասանելիությունը ևս շարունակում է անհամաչափ մնալ, մասնավորապես՝ երեք տարեկանից փոքր, հաշմանդամություն ունեցող երեխաների կամ գյուղական համայքներում բնակվող ընտանիքների դեպքում: Երեխայի խնամքի ոչ բավարար հասանելիությունը սահմանափակում է ծնողների կարողությունները, հատկապես՝ մայրերինը, աշխատաշուկայում մնալու կամ մուտք գործելու համար, չնայած կանանց ներգրավվածությանը բարձրագույն կրթության մեջ (ՄԱԿ-ի մանկական հիմնադրամ և Կրթության համաշխարհային գործընկերություն, 2022):

Թեև Հայաստանի աշխատանքային օրենսդրությունը ընձեռում է ճկուն աշխատանքային պայմանների հնարավորություններ, դրանց կիրառումը տարբեր ոլորտներում շարունակում է անհամաչափ մնալ, իսկ ընտանիքամետ աշխատավայրերի ձևավորումը՝ լայնորեն ինստիտուցիոնալացված չէ։ : Ճկուն աշխատաժամերը, հիբրիդային ձևաչափով աշխատանքի մոդելները, փուլային ձևով աշխատանքի վերադառնալու կարգավորումները և աշխատավայրերի աջակցությունը խնամքի պարտականություններ ունեցող աշխատողներին շարունակում են մեծապես կախված մնալ անհատականապես գործատուներից՝ ավելի լայն ազգային մոտեցման շրջանակի մաս կազմելու փոխարեն:

Ի վերջո, քաղաքականության բարեփոխումները շարունակում են գործել սոցիալական համատեքստում, որտեղ խնամք ցուցաբերելն ընկալվում է որպես կանանց հիմնական պատասխանատվություն: Կայուն պահպանվող գենդերային կարծրատիպերն ազդում են թե´ տնային տնտեսություններում որոշումների կայացման, թե´ աշխատավայրի սպասելիքների վրա՝ նվազեցնելով գործող քաղաքականության միջոցների արդյունավետությունը և սահմանափակելով հայրերի ներգրավումը երեխայի խնամքի և խնամքի այլ պարտականություններում: Միջազգային փորձը ցույց է տալիս, որ օրենսդրական բարեփոխումներն առավել արդյունավետ են, երբ դրանք ուղեկցվում են վարքագծային փոփոխություններով, գործատուների ներգրավվածությամբ և խնամքի պարտականությունների համատեղ իրականացման նորմերը խթանող միջոցառումներով (de la Porte et al., 2022; UNFPA EECARO, 2021):

Այս բացերի հաղթահարումը պահանջում է առանձին քաղաքականության միջոցառումներից անցում կատարել դեպի ընտանիքամետ քաղաքականության ինտեգրված շրջանակ, որը չվարձատրվող խնամքը կճանաչի որպես հասարակության ընդհանուր պատասխանատվություն։ Նման մոտեցումն ավելի լավ կերպով կներդաշնակեցնի ժողովրդագրական, աշխատաշուկայի, սոցիալական պաշտպանության, կրթության և գենդերային հավասարության քաղաքականությունները՝ միաժամանակ ստեղծելով նպաստավոր պայմաններ, որպեսզի թե՛ կանայք, թե՛ տղամարդիկ լիարժեք մասնակցեն ինչպես վարձատրվող աշխատանքին, այնպես էլ ընտանեկան կյանքին։

Քաղաքականության Հինգ Առաջնահերթ Միջոցառումներ

1.Ընդլայնել երեխայի խնամքի մատչելի և ներառական ծառայությունների հասանելիությունը

Երեխայի խնամքի որակյալ, մատչելի և ներառական ծառայությունների հասանելիության ընդլայնումը պետք է կանանց աշխատուժի մասնակցության և ժողովրդագրական դիմակայունության աջակցման ազգային առաջնահերթություն լինի: Թեև Հայաստանը առաջընթաց է ապրել նախադպրոցականների հաշվառման հարցում, այդուհանդերձ, առկա են էական բացեր երեք տարեկանից ցածր, հաշմանդամություն ունեցող և գյուղական համայնքներում բնակվող ընտանիքների երեխաների առումով: Այս բացերը հաճախ ստիպում են կանանց կրճատել իրենց աշխատանքային ժամերը, հետաձգել կարիերայի առաջխաղացումը կամ ամբողջովին հրաժարվել աշխատանքից:

Միջազգային փորձը ցույց է տալիս, որ երեխաների վաղ հասակի կրթության և խնամքի մեջ ներդրումը կանանց աշխատունակությունը բարձրացնելու, աղքատությունը կրճատելու, երեխայի զարգացմանն աջակցելու և երկարատև տնտեսական արդյունավետության բարելավման համար առավել արդյունավետ քաղաքականության գործիքներից մեկն է (Fluchtmann et al., 2023; ՄԱԿ-ի մանկական հիմնադրամ և Կրթության համաշխարհային գործընկերություն, 2022): Հայաստանը կարող է ընդունել փուլային մոտեցում, որը կընդլայնի երեխայի համայնքահեն խնամքի ծառայությունները, կնպաստի մանկական 10

վաղ տարիքի կրթության մեջ պետական ներդրումների աճին, կամրապնդի ներառական ծառայությունների ընդգրկումը և կներդնի երեխայի խնամքի թիրախավորված սուբսիդավորումներ խոցելի ընտանիքների համար:

2. Խթանել համատեղ խնամքը՝ ծնողական արձակուրդի ավելի արդար բաշխման համակարգի միջոցով

Չվարձատրվող խնամքի ավելի բալանսավորված բաշխման հասնելը պահանջում է հայրերի ավելի մեծ ներգրավվածություն երեխայի խնամքի հարցերում ծնողավարման վաղ շրջանից: Հայաստանի ներկայիս երեխայի խնամքի արձակուրդի համակարգը շարունակում է հիմնական խնամքի պարտականությունները դնել մայրերի վրա, մինչդեռ հայրության արձակուրդի գործող կարգավորումները չափազանց սահմանափակ են՝ երեխայի խնամքի մոդելները փոխելու համար։

Միջազգային, մասնավորապես Սկանդինավյան երկրների փորձը ցույց է տալիս, որ հատուկ հայրերի համար նախատեսված բավարար չափով փոխհատուցվող և չփոխանցվող արձակուրդը զգալիորեն մեծացնում է հայրերի ներգրավվածությունը երեխաների խնամքի հարցում և նպաստում է երեխաների ողջ կյանքի ընթացքում չվարձատրվող խնամքի պարտականությունների ավելի հավասար բաշխմանը (ՄԱԿ-ի բնակչության հիմնադրամ [UNFPA EECARO], 2021)։ Թեև Սկանդինավյան երկրների օրինակով համընդհանուր աշխատավարձի փոխհատուցման համակարգի ներդրումը սահմանափակվում է պետական բյուջեի հնարավորություններով և խնամքի ավանդական ու արմատացած նորմերով պայմանավորված, Հայաստանը կարող էիրականացնել արդյունավետ աստիճանական քայլեր՝ ներդնելով հայրերի համար նախատեսված հատուկ, չփոխանցվող արձակուրդ և ամրապնդելով թիրախային ֆինանսական նպաստների համակարգի բարելավումը։

3. Նպաստել ընտանիքամետ աշխատավայրերի ձևավորմանը

Ընտանիքամետ աշխատավայրերի ձևավորումն առանցքային նշանակություն ունի, քանի որ այն հնարավորություն է ընձեռում ծնողներին և խնամք իրականացնող մյուս անձանց համատեղելու աշխատանքային և խնամքի պարտականությունները: Աշխատանքի ճկուն կազմակերպման ձևերը, ներառյալ հիբրիդային ձևաչափով աշխատանքը, ճկուն աշխատանքային գրաֆիկը, ծնողական արձակուրդից հետո աշխատանքի փուլային վերադարձը և կրծքով կերակրման աջակցության միջոցները, կարևոր գործիքներ են դարձել աշխատանքային և անձնական կյանքի հավասարակշռությունը բարելավելու և փորձառու աշխատակիցների հոսքունակությունը կանխելու հարցում։ Օրենսդրական դրույթները բարելավելուց զատ, Հայաստանը կարող է խրախուսել գործատուներին՝ կամավոր կերպով ներդնելու ընտանիքին աջակցող աշխատավայրի գործելակերպեր՝ խրախուսման միջոցների, ճանաչման կամ հավաստագրման ծրագրերի միջոցով։ ։ Նման մոտեցումները շահավետ կլինեն գործատուների համար՝ նպաստելով աշխատակիցների հոսքունակության նվազմանը և արտադրողականության բարձրացմանը՝ միաժամանակ աջակցելով կանանց և խնամք իրականացնող այլ անձանց աշխատաշուկայում ավելի ակտիվ ներգրավմանը։

4. Ներառել չվարձատրվող խնամքն ազգային տնտեսական և ժողովրդագրական քաղաքականության մեջ

Հայաստանի ազգային փոխանցումային հաշիվների և Ազգային փոխանցումային հաշիվների ժամանակային վերլուծության հետազոտության արդյունքները ցույց են տալիս, որ չվարձատրվող խնամքն էական ներդրում է հանդիսանում ազգային տնտեսության համար: Մինչդեռ, այս ներդրումը մեծամասամբ շարունակում է դուրս մնալ տեսադաշտից քաղաքականության մշակման և տնտեսական որոշումների կայացման գործընթացներում:

Չվարձատրվող խնամքը որպես արդյունավետ տնտեսական գործունեություն ճանաչելը կնպաստի զբաղվածության, ժողովրդագրության, սոցիալական պաշտպանության և ֆինանսական ոլորտներում ավելի փաստահեն քաղաքականության մշակմանը: Հայաստանը պետք է ինստիտուցիոնալացնի կանոնավոր Ժամանակի օգտագործման հետազոտության և Ազգային փոխանցումային հաշիվների հետազոտության իրականացումը, ամրապնդի ըստ սեռի տարանջատված տվյալների հավաքումը և ներառի չվարձատրվող խնամքի ցուցանիշները ազգային մշտադիտարկման գործընթացներում: Փաստահեն քաղաքականությունների մշակումը հնարավորություն կընձեռի գնահատել երեխայի խնամքի, ընտանիքամետ քաղաքականությունների և գենդերային հավասարության ոլորտներում կատարված ներդրումների տնտեսական եկամտաբերությունը:

5. Փոխակերպել սոցիալական նորմերը հանրային իրազեկման և ինստիտուցիոնալ փոփոխությունների միջոցով

Քաղաքականության բարելավումներն ինքնին չեն կարող ապահովել չվարձատրվող խնամքի ավելի հավասար բաշխում: Խորն արմատավորված գենդերային կարծրատիպերը շարունակում են խնամքի պարտականությունները դնել կանանց ուսերին՝ սահմանափակելով թե´ կանանց հնարավորությունները տնտեսության ներգրավվածությանը, թե´ տղամարդկանց մասնակցությունն ընտանեկան կյանքում:

Սոցիալական նորմերի փոփոխությունը պահանջում է պետական կայուն ներդրումներ իրազեկման արշավներում, ներգրավված հայրությունը խթանող նախաձեռնություններում, կրթական ծրագրերում, ինչպես նաևգործատուների ներգրավման հարցերում: Կանանց և տղամարդկանց միջև խնամքի պարտականությունների համատեղ իրականացման խթանումը պետք է դառնա ժողովրդագրական, կրթական, աշխատաշուկայի և գենդերային հավասարության քաղաքականությունների անբաժանելի բաղադրիչը։ Քաղաքացիական հասարակության, գործատուների, ակադեմիական շրջանակների և լրատվամիջոցների հետ գործընկերության ամրապնդումը կարող է հետագայում նպաստել վարքագծային փոփոխությունների և ընտանիքամետ բարեփոխումների հանրային ընկալման բարձրացմանը։

Գծապատկեր 2. Խնամքի տնտեսության մեջ ներդրումները՝ հանուն գենդերային հավասարության և ժողովրդագրական դիմակայունության Հայաստանում

Source: Authors’ analysis based on data from Armenia NTA 2024, NTTA 2026, and international evidence

ՆԵՐԴՐՈՒՄ ԿԱՏԱՐԵԼՈՎ ԽՆԱՄՔԻ ՏՆՏԵՍՈՒԹՅԱՆ ՄԵՋ՝ Ի ՆՊԱՍՏ ՀԱՅԱՍՏԱՆՈՒՄ ԳԵՆԴԵՐԱՅԻՆ ՀԱՎԱՍԱՐՈՒԹՅԱՆ ԵՒ ԺՈՂՈՎՐԴԱԳՐԱԿԱՆ ԴԻՄԱԿԱՅՈՒՆՈՒԹՅԱՆ

1.Ընդլայնել երեխայի խնամքի մատչելի և ներառական ծառայությունների հասանելիությունը

    • Ընդլայնել երեխաների համայնքահեն խնամքի ծառայությունները, հատկապես՝ 3 տարեկանից ցածր տարիքի, հաշմանդամություն ունեցող կամ գյուղական համայնքների ընտանիքների երեխաների համար:
    • Ավելացնել պետական ներդրումները մանկահասակ տարիքի երեխաների կրթության և խնամքի մեջ:
    • Ամրապնդել ներառական ծառայությունների տրամադրման գործընթացը:
    • Ներկայացնել թիրախավորված սուբսիդավորումներ խոցելի ընտանիքների համար:

Որակյալ, մատչելի և ներառական երեխայի խնամքը հնարավորություններ է ստեղծում երեխաների, ընտանիքների և տնտեսության համար:

2. Խթանել խնամքի պարտականությունների համատեղ իրականացումը՝ ծնողական արձակուրդի ավելի արդար բաշխման միջոցով

    • Մեծացնել հայրերի մասնակցությունը երեխայի խնամքի հարցերում ծնողավարման վաղ փուլերից:
    • Սահմանել հայրության համար նախատեսված հատուկ և չփոխանցվող արձակուրդ և ընդլայնել ֆինանսական նպաստները:
    • Սովորել միջազգային փորձից՝ այն հարմարեցնելով Հայաստանի համատեքստին և բյուջետային հնարավորություններին:

Խնամքի ավելի հավասար պայմաններն աջակցում են երեխաներին, ծնողներին և ավելի բալանսավորված հասարակությանը:

3. Ընտանիքամետ աշխատավայրերի խրախուսում

    • Ապահովել ճկուն աշխատանքային պայմաններ, հիբրիդային ձևաչափով աշխատանք, ճկուն աշխատանքային գրաֆիկներ, փուլային վերադարձ աշխատանքի և կրծքով կերակրման աջակցություն:
    • Խրախուսել ընտանիքամետ քաղաքականությունների կամավոր որդեգրումը՝ խրախուսման միջոցների, ճանաչման կամ հավաստագրման ծրագրերի միջոցով:
    • Աջակցել գործատուներին՝ նպաստելով աշխատողների արտադրողականության աճին և հոսքունակության նվազմանը և, ինչպես նաև կանանց և խնամքի այլ պարտականություններ ունեցող անձանց աշխատաշուկայում մասնակցության ընդլայնմանը։

Ընտանիքի համար նպաստավոր աշխատավայրերը բարենպաստ պայմաններ են ստեղծում հասարակության, գործատուների և տնտեսության համար:

4. Ներառել չվարձատրվող խնամքն ազգային տնտեսական և ժողովրդագրական քաղաքականության մեջ

  • Ինստիտուցիոնալացնել Ժամանակի օգտագործման հետազոտության և Ազգային փոխանցումային հաշիվների ժամանակային վերլուծության հետազոտության իրականացումը։ :
  • Բարելավել ըստ սեռի տարանջատված տվյալների հավաքագրումը և չվարձատրվող խնամքի ցուցիչներն ինտեգրել մշտադիտարկման և որոշումների կայացման գործընթացների մեջ:

Փաստահեն քաղաքականությունների մշակումը,խնամքի, ընտանիքների և գենդերային հավասարության ոլորտներում ներդրումները հանգեցնում են եկամտաբերության վերադարձի առավել բարձր ցուցանիշների:

5. Փոխակերպել սոցիալական նորմերը՝ հանրային իրազեկման և ինստիտուցիոնալ փոփոխությունների միջոցով

    • Հաղթահարել գենդերային կարծրատիպերը և խթանել
    • խնամքի համատեղ պարտականությունների կատարումը:
    • Ներդրում կատարել իրազեկման արշավների, հայրության դրական ազդեցություն ունեցող նախաձեռնությունների, կրթության և գործատուների ներգրավվածության ոլորտներում:
    • Ինտեգրել գենդերային հավասարությունը և խնամքի համատեղ պարտականությունները կրթական և վերապատրաստման ծրագրերում:
    • Ամրապնդել քաղաքացիական հասարակության, գործատուների, ակադեմիայի և լրատվամիջոցների հետ գործընկերությունը:

Սոցիալական նորմերի փոփոխությունը նպաստում էընտանիքամետ միջավայրի ձևավորմանը: Խաչվող առաջնահերթություններ Գենդերային հավասարություն և կանանց զորեղացում Ներառականություն և «ոչ ոքի չանտեսելու» սկզբունք (հաշմանդամություն ունեցող անձինք, գյուղական համայնքներ և խոցելի խմբեր): Կայուն և դիմակայուն զարգացում: Բազմաշահառու գործընկերություն և համագործակցություն:

ԱԿՆԿԱԼՎՈՂ ԱՐԴՅՈՒՆՔՆԵՐ

  • Կանանց ավելի մեծ մասնակցություն տնտեսության մեջ:
  • Երեխաների բարեկեցության և զարգացման բարելավում:
  • Չվարձատրվող խնամքի պարտականությունների ավելի հավասար բաշխում:
  • Ամուր և ավելի դիմակայուն ընտանիքներ և համայնքներ:
  • Ավելի ներառական և կայուն տնտեսություն:

Եզրակացություն և ռազմավարական ուղենիշներ

Հայաստանում չվարձատրվող խնամքի աշխատանքն ընտանիքների և տնտեսության կենսագործունեության կարևոր հիմքն է, սակայն դրա հիմնական ծանրաբեռնվածությունը կանանց ուսերին դնելը սահմանափակում է նրանց մասնակցությունն աշխատաշուկայում, խորացնում գենդերային անհավասարությունները և զսպում ազգային արտադրողականության աճը։ Այս մարտահրավերի հաղթահարումը պահանջում է մաս-առ-մաս միջամտություններից անցում կատարել դեպի համապարփակ, փաստահեն ռազմավարություն։ Այս համառոտագրման մեջ ընդգծված քաղաքականության հինգ առաջնահերթ միջոցառումները, այն է՝ մատչելի խնամքի ընդլայնումը, հավասարաչափ բաշխված ծնողական արձակուրդի սահմանումը, ընտանիքամետ աշխատավայրերի խթանումը, չվարձատրվող խնամքի ներառումը տնտեսական պլանավորման և պետական քաղաքականությունների գործընթացներում և հասարակական նորմերի փոփոխությունը, կազմում են խնամքի բեռի վերաբաշխման փոխկապակցված շրջանակ:

Քանի որ ընտանիքամետ այս միջոցառումները փոխլրացնող բնույթ ունեն, դրանց առանձին և մեկուսացված կիրառումը սահմանափակ արդյունքներ կտա: Այս փաթեթն անմիջականորեն Հայաստանի ժողովրդագրական, զբաղվածության և գենդերային քաղաքականության ռազմավարություններում ներառելը՝ միջգերատեսչական համակարգման աջակցությամբ, առավելագույնի կհասցնի պետական ներդրումների արդյունավետությունը, կամրապնդի մարդկային կապիտալը և կխթանի երկարաժամկետ ժողովրդագրական ու տնտեսական կայունությունը։

Օգտագործված աղբյուրներ

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Recognizing Unpaid Care: Family-Friendly Policies for Armenia

Posted on September 29, 2026 | Policy Brief

Unpaid care work is a cornerstone of Armenia’s care economy, sustaining families, supporting human development, and underpinning the functioning of society. However, unpaid care work remains largely invisible in economic policymaking and continues to fall disproportionately on women, limiting their participation in the labor market and reinforcing gender inequalities. As Armenia faces population aging, a shrinking labor force and growing care needs, recognizing and investing in the care economy has become both a demographic and an economic imperative. 

Drawing on recent evidence from Armenia, including National Transfer Accounts and National Time Transfer Accounts Surveys, as well as international experience, this policy brief examines how family-friendly policies can help recognize, reduce, and redistribute unpaid care work. It argues that expanding childcare services, promoting shared parental responsibilities, fostering family-friendly workplaces, and integrating care into national policy planning can strengthen women’s economic participation, improve family well-being, and enhance demographic resilience. Investing in the care economy is therefore not only a matter of gender equality, but a strategic investment in Armenia’s sustainable and inclusive development.

Why Unpaid Care Matters for Armenia

Armenia is experiencing profound demographic changes, including below-replacement fertility, population aging, sustained outmigration, and a shrinking working-age population (Statistical Committee of the Republic of Armenia, 2025). These trends are increasing pressure on labor markets, social protection systems, and public finances while raising the importance of maximizing the country’s human capital. In this context, strengthening women’s economic participation is not only a matter of gender equality but also a demographic and economic imperative.

Unpaid care work lies at the center of this challenge. Every day, households rely on unpaid childcare, eldercare, care for persons with disabilities, and domestic work to sustain families and communities. Although these activities are essential for social and economic well-being, they remain largely invisible in conventional economic statistics and continue to be performed predominantly by women (Ameria Management Advisory & United Nations Population Fund, 2024). As a result, women face a disproportionate burden of caregiving responsibilities that limits their participation in paid employment, reduces lifetime earnings, constrains career progression, and contributes to persistent gender inequalities in the labor market. Recent demographic evidence suggests that Armenia’s future prosperity will depend less on increasing population size than on investing in people and creating conditions that enable individuals to reconcile work and family life. Family-friendly policies, including accessible childcare services, equitable parental leave, flexible work arrangements, and measures that promote shared caregiving, can help reduce barriers to women’s employment while supporting families in realizing their reproductive intentions (Fluchtmann, van Veen, & Adema, 2023).

Recognizing, reducing, and redistributing unpaid care work should therefore become a central component of Armenia’s demographic and socio-economic policy agenda. Investing in the care economy is not solely a social welfare measure; it is a strategic investment in human capital, labor productivity, gender equality, and long-term demographic resilience. By integrating care considerations into employment, demographic, and social protection policies, Armenia can better respond to the challenges of population aging while strengthening inclusive and sustainable economic development.

What Evidence Shows

Recent evidence from Armenia’s first National Transfer Accounts (NTA) (2024) and National Time Transfer Accounts (NTTA) (2026) shows that unpaid care work is one of the country’s largest yet least recognized economic resources. Together with national labor market statistics, these findings demonstrate that the unequal distribution of unpaid care is not only a gender equality issue but also a constraint on economic productivity, labor force participation, and demographic resilience (Statistical Committee of the Republic of Armenia, 2025).

 Figure 1. Unpaid Care Work in Armenia: Key Facts

Sources: UNFPA (2024, 2026), National Transfer Accounts (NTA), National Time Transfer Accounts (NTTA); National Statistical Committee of Armenia (2025); OECD, UN Women, ILO, ESCAP.

Unpaid Care Is a Major Contributor to Armenia’s Economy

The NTTA survey has revealed that women in Armenia perform 24.1 hours of unpaid care and household work per week, compared with 6.3 hours for men, nearly four times more. Women’s unpaid care commitments peak at approximately 44-49 hours per week during the ages of 28-36, coinciding with the years of greatest career advancement and family formation. This overlap highlights how unequal caregiving responsibilities reduce women’s economic participation precisely when their contribution to the labor market is most critical for productivity and demographic resilience. Household tasks account for the largest share of this work, while women also spend 3.8 times more time on childcare than men. The disparity is particularly pronounced during the peak parenting years (ages 23-27), when women devote more than ten times as many hours to childcare.

When this work is assigned an economic value, its contribution becomes impossible to ignore. Depending on the valuation method, unpaid care represents between 16.8% and 46.9% of Armenia’s GDP, reflecting whether care time is valued at low-cost market replacement wages or individuals’ higher potential earnings, exceeding the output of several major formal sectors, including manufacturing and trade. Women generate approximately 80% of this economic value, showing that the care economy continues to rely overwhelmingly on women’s unpaid labor.

Unpaid Care Constrains Women’s Economic Participation

The unequal distribution of care responsibilities has direct consequences for women’s participation in the labor market. The NTA survey reveals that, unlike men, women do not experience a positive lifecycle surplus at any age, meaning that at no point in the lifecycle does women’s labor income exceed their consumption. Because heavy unpaid care duties limit their paid employment, women’s immense economic contribution remains uncompensated in formal accounts.

This pattern is also reflected in national labor market statistics. Although women have higher rates of tertiary education enrolment than men, 51% of women remain economically inactive, compared with 29% of men (Statistical Committee of the Republic of Armenia, 2025). Women are also significantly underrepresented in leadership and decision-making positions. These disparities indicate that educational attainment alone is insufficient to ensure equal economic opportunities when unpaid care responsibilities remain unequally distributed.

Demographic Change Increases the Urgency for Reform

Population aging is expected to increase demand for caregiving while reducing the working-age population (Lee, 2025). NTA projections show that intergenerational transfers are shifting away from investment in children toward supporting older persons. By 2050, an estimated 60% of intergenerational transfers will go toward supporting older adults. This represents a complete reversal of current trends, which prioritize investments in children. Without reforms that strengthen formal care services and enable greater labor market participation, particularly among women, the growing demand for unpaid care is likely to intensify existing labor shortages and place additional pressure on families and public finances.

Collectively, these findings demonstrate that unpaid care work should be recognized as a productive economic activity rather than a private household responsibility. Addressing the unequal distribution of care through family-friendly policies is therefore essential not only for advancing gender equality but also for strengthening Armenia’s economic resilience and long-term demographic sustainability.

Current Policy Gaps

Armenia has established an important policy foundation for addressing demographic change, gender equality, employment, and family well-being. The Demographic Strategy of Armenia (2024-2040), the Employment Strategy (2025-2031), the Gender Policy Implementation Strategy (2025-2028) (Government of the Republic of Armenia, 2024), and Labor Legislation (National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, 2004) all recognize the importance of supporting families, promoting women’s employment, and improving work-life balance. Collectively, these policy frameworks provide a strong basis for advancing family-friendly policies and responding to demographic challenges.

However, important implementation gaps continue to limit their effectiveness. While maternity protection and childcare leave are well established, fathers’ participation in caregiving remains limited because paternity leave is short (5 working days) and there is no dedicated, non-transferable parental leave. As a result, caregiving responsibilities continue to fall disproportionately on women, reinforcing traditional gender roles and contributing to career interruptions following childbirth.

Access to affordable and quality childcare services also remains uneven, particularly for children under three years of age, children with disabilities, and families living in rural communities. Limited childcare availability constrains parents’ – especially mothers’ ability to enter or remain in the labor market, despite high levels of educational attainment among women (United Nations Children’s Fund & Global Partnership for Education, 2022).

Although Armenian labor legislation provides opportunities for flexible work arrangements, their implementation remains inconsistent across sectors, and family-friendly workplace practices are not yet widely institutionalized. Flexible working hours, hybrid work models, phased return-to-work arrangements and workplace support for employees with caregiving responsibilities remain largely dependent on individual employers rather than forming part of a broader national approach.

Finally, policy reforms continue to operate within a social context where caregiving is widely perceived as a woman’s primary responsibility. Persistent gender stereotypes influence both household decision-making and workplace expectations, reducing the effectiveness of existing policy measures and limiting fathers’ engagement in childcare and other caregiving responsibilities. International experience demonstrates that legislative reforms are most effective when accompanied by measures that promote behavioral change, employer engagement, and shared caregiving norms. (de la Porte et al., 2022; UNFPA EECARO, 2021)

Addressing these gaps requires moving beyond individual policy measures toward an integrated family-friendly policy framework that recognizes unpaid care as a shared societal responsibility. Such an approach would better align demographic, labor market, social protection, education, and gender equality policies while creating enabling conditions for both women and men to participate fully in paid work and family life.

Five Priority Policy Actions

  1. Expand Access to Affordable and Inclusive Childcare Services

Expanding access to quality, affordable, and inclusive childcare services should be a national priority for strengthening women’s labor force participation and supporting demographic resilience. Although Armenia has made progress in increasing preschool enrollment, significant gaps remain for children under three years of age, children with disabilities, and families living in rural communities. These gaps often force women to reduce working hours, postpone career advancement, or leave employment altogether.

International experience demonstrates that investment in early childhood education and care is one of the most effective policy instruments for increasing female employment, reducing poverty, supporting child development, and improving long-term economic productivity (Fluchtmann et al., 2023; UNICEF & Global Partnership for Education, 2022). Armenia could adopt a phased approach that expands community-based childcare services, increases public investment in early childhood education, strengthens inclusive service provision, and introduces targeted childcare subsidies for vulnerable families.

Figure 2. Investing in the care economy for gender equality and demographic resilience in Armenia

Source: Authors’ analysis based on data from Armenia NTA 2024, NTTA 2026, and international evidence

  1. Promote Shared Caregiving through More Equitable Parental Leave

Achieving a more balanced distribution of unpaid care requires greater participation of fathers in childcare from the earliest stages of parenthood. Armenia’s current parental leave framework continues to place primary caregiving responsibilities on mothers, while existing paternity leave provisions remain too limited to influence caregiving patterns.

International experience, particularly from the Nordic countries, demonstrates that dedicated, adequately compensated, non-transferable leave for fathers substantially increases paternal involvement in childcare and contributes to more equal sharing of unpaid care throughout children’s lives (United Nations Population Fund [UNFPA EECARO], 2021). Although replicating Nordic-style universal wage replacement is limited by public budget constraints and entrenched traditional caregiving norms, Armenia can take high-impact incremental steps by introducing dedicated, non-transferable leave for fathers and strengthening targeted financial benefits.

  1. Foster Family-Friendly Workplaces

Creating family-friendly workplaces is essential for enabling parents and other caregivers to reconcile paid employment with family responsibilities. Flexible work arrangements, including hybrid work, flexible scheduling, phased return-to-work after parental leave, and breastfeeding support, have become increasingly important tools for improving work-life balance and retaining skilled workers.

Beyond legislative provisions, Armenia could encourage employers to voluntarily adopt family-friendly workplace practices through incentive mechanisms, recognition programs, or certification schemes. Such approaches would benefit employers by improving staff retention and productivity while supporting greater labor market participation among women and other caregivers.

  1. Integrate Unpaid Care into National Economic and Demographic Policy

The findings from Armenia’s National Transfer Accounts and National Time Transfer Accounts demonstrate that unpaid care constitutes a substantial contribution to the national economy. Yet this contribution remains largely invisible in policy planning and economic decision-making.

Recognizing unpaid care as a productive economic activity would support more evidence-based policymaking across employment, demographic, social protection, and fiscal policies. Armenia should institutionalize regular Time Use Surveys, continue developing National Time Transfer Accounts, strengthen sex-disaggregated data collection and integrate unpaid care indicators into national development monitoring. Better measurement would enable policymakers to assess the economic returns of investments in childcare, family-friendly policies, and gender equality.

  1. Transform Social Norms through Public Awareness and Institutional Change

Policy reforms alone cannot achieve a more equitable distribution of unpaid care. Deeply rooted gender stereotypes continue to assign caregiving responsibilities primarily to women, limiting both women’s economic opportunities and men’s participation in family life.

Changing social norms requires sustained public investment in awareness campaigns, positive fatherhood initiatives, education programs and employer engagement. Promoting caregiving as a shared responsibility between women and men should become an integral component of demographic, education, labor market and gender equality policies. Strengthening partnerships with civil society, employers, academia and the media can further support behavioral change and increase public acceptance of family-friendly reforms.

Conclusion and Strategic Way Forward

Unpaid care work underpins Armenia’s households and economy, yet its heavy reliance on women limits female labor force participation, deepens gender inequalities and constrains national productivity. Addressing this challenge requires moving beyond fragmented interventions toward a comprehensive, evidence-based strategy. The five priority policy actions highlighted in this brief- expanding affordable childcare, introducing equitable parental leave for fathers, fostering family-friendly workplaces, embedding unpaid care into economic planning and state policies, and shifting societal norms- form an interconnected framework to redistribute the care burden.

Because these family-friendly measures are mutually reinforcing, isolated implementation will yield limited gains. Embedding this package directly into Armenia’s Demographic, Employment and Gender Policy strategies, backed by cross-ministerial coordination, will maximize public investment, strengthen human capital and drive long-term demographic and economic resilience.

References

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

Gender Gaps in Access to Startup Capital in Armenia

Posted on September 28, 2026 | Policy Brief

This brief examines whether women in Armenia have less access to early-stage startup funding and what may explain that gap. The available evidence points to a striking imbalance: in a sample of 45 funded Armenian startups, only 7 (15 percent) include a woman founder or co-founder. The structural features of the ecosystem likely reinforce this gap. First, Armenia’s startup market is small and network-dependent — roughly 144 active startups and about USD 164 million in total funding — so access to capital runs heavily through personal connections, and each gatekeeper carries more weight. Second, women bear a heavier share of care and time burdens, leaving less room for the sustained networking on which relationship-based funding depends. The brief, therefore, makes a broader policy claim. Armenia should treat gender gaps in startup capital not only as a funding problem, but also as a market design and care infrastructure problem. A stronger response would combine better gender-disaggregated funding data, more inclusive pathways into investor networks, and more practical support for shared care responsibilities.

Armenia’s startup ecosystem is young, small, and highly network-dependent — the kind of market in which who gets funded can hinge on who is known and trusted. Gender is one such line of division. This brief asks whether women in Armenia have weaker access to early-stage startup funding, and if so, what explains the gap.

The concern is grounded in broader evidence on women entrepreneurs in the country: the IFC/World Bank Women Entrepreneurship Study in Armenia finds that access to finance is the most prominent obstacle entrepreneurs report (International Finance Corporation, 2021). And the barrier is not only a matter of investor choice or founder readiness — women’s access is also shaped by collateral constraints and by unequal access to productive assets tied to inheritance and land ownership.

This brief looks first at what international evidence suggests about gender gaps in startup capital. Then it turns to the Armenian evidence: what the visible funding landscape reveals about women’s access to startup capital, how the small size and network dependence of the ecosystem shape that access, and how unequal care and time burdens reinforce it. It closes with a set of policy recommendations spanning funding-data transparency, more inclusive investor access, and shared care support.

What International Evidence Suggests

International research shows that women founders are disadvantaged in many early-stage funding markets, particularly where investor decisions rely on networks, informal signals, and subjective judgments of founder potential (Kanze et al., 2020; Koch et al., 2025; Liao et al., 2024). Women are less likely to secure external funding and, when they do, tend to raise less: across OECD and BRICS countries, startups with at least one woman founder are 5 to 10 percent less likely to be funded and receive about one third less when funded (Lassébie et al., 2019). Part of this reflects how investors evaluate founders — women are more often asked prevention-focused questions about risks, men promotion-focused questions about growth (Kanze et al., 2018).

The gap is not driven by investor bias alone; pipeline, startup orientation, and signaling explain part of it, though a substantial share remains unexplained. Fewer women may enter the funding process at all; women-led ventures are more often presented as smaller or local businesses rather than the fast-growth companies investors seek; and investors lean on visible signals — prior startup experience, early sales, a strong team, accelerator participation, trusted referrals. Yet these factors do not close the gap: even after accounting for them, women founders still face additional barriers to capital. In the United States, female-led ventures are 63 percent less likely to obtain venture capital, about 65 percent of that difference linked to initial startup orientation, with the remainder persisting after controls (Guzman and Kacperczyk, 2019). That gap narrows when stronger growth signals are available, and, conditional on funding, women- and men-led ventures achieve exits at similar rates. This last result should be read with caution, as it covers only ventures past the selection stage — but it suggests weaker access to capital should not be taken as evidence of weaker post-funding performance.

Investor composition matters too. Bellucci et al. (2024) find that female-owned businesses receive lower funding only when the angel investor is a man — a warning sign for markets where angel investing is relationship-driven and male-dominated. A recent OECD review makes a similar point: angel investment (i.e., that by individual early-stage investors who invest their own money in startups) is especially important for women entrepreneurs, yet they are disadvantaged by thinner networks and the underrepresentation of women among angel investors (OECD, 2025).

Taken together, this literature suggests that gender gaps in startup capital are shaped by both supply-side and demand-side forces: investor perceptions and investor composition matter, but so do pipeline conditions, access to networks, and the quality of the signals founders can present.

This framing is especially relevant for Armenia. Its startup ecosystem is small and tightly networked, with a limited pool of early-stage capital concentrated among relatively few investors — precisely the conditions under which the international dynamics of network reliance, informal signaling, and a male-dominated investor base are amplified rather than offset. When capital flows through a handful of relationships, being outside those networks is more costly than in deep, liquid markets. The rest of this brief examines how these forces appear in the Armenian evidence, and what they imply for who gets to build and grow.

Evidence Base and Approach

The approach in this brief is exploratory and relies on triangulation rather than causal identification. It combines international academic and institutional research on gender gaps in startup finance, Armenian studies on women’s entrepreneurship and access to finance, and ecosystem-level evidence from Armenia’s startup landscape originating from 2carrots VC Database, an Armenian startup database.

One of the key reasons for the chosen approach is data limitations. Armenia does not yet have a systematic public dataset showing founder gender across grants, accelerators, angel investment, and venture capital. The currently visible funding landscape should therefore be read as a descriptive signal rather than a complete national census of startup finance. Even so, the available evidence is strong enough to justify policy attention, especially when combined with signs of a narrow startup market, limited capital depth, and weak supportive conditions around childcare and time use.

Key Findings

Women Are Underrepresented among Funded Startups in Armenia

The clearest visible ecosystem signal is straightforward: women rarely appear among funded founders. To examine this, we used the 2carrots VC Database, a public database of Armenian startups that lists startup profiles and ecosystem information. In a sample of 45 funded startups across 8 venture capital firms and angel investor groups in Armenia, only 7 (15%) appear to include a woman founder or co-founder. Even with all the caveats that come with partial data, this is a striking imbalance. It suggests that women are not achieving the same visible investment outcomes as men.

This pattern matters because it appears in a small, shallow startup market. An article published in the Caucasus Business Journal reports around $164 million in total startup funding across the Armenian ecosystem, while Seedstars describes only 144 active startups in the country. In a larger, deeper capital market, founders may have more routes to funding and a greater chance to recover from early exclusion. In a smaller market like Armenia, each gatekeeper matters more. Under those conditions, underrepresentation among funded startups becomes more consequential because exclusion at an early stage is more likely to have a lasting effect.

Armenia’s Narrow Early-stage Market May Make Network Access Particularly Important

In Armenia’s small early-stage funding market, founders appear to have fewer formal and alternative routes to startup capital than they would in a larger, deeper market. This makes access to investor networks especially important. The broader venture capital literature helps explain why: Alexy et al. (2011) show that venture capitalists’ social networks can shape funding decisions because networks give investors access to information about investment opportunities and help reduce uncertainty.

Armenian evidence also highlights the relevance of these connections. In a Seedstars interview, EBRD’s Armenuhi Arakelyan identifies diaspora ties as a source of funding, expertise, and networking opportunities (Seedstars, 2025). The IFC’s qualitative research reports limited interaction among women entrepreneurs and insufficient connections with sectoral associations and specialized NGOs, restricting their access to information and opportunities. However, it notes that networking is more prevalent in the IT sector (International Finance Corporation, 2021).

Applied to Armenia, this suggests that when the number of visible investors and funding channels is limited, referrals, repeated contact, and personal visibility may carry greater weight. In practice, access to the right circles can therefore matter more. Such a market structure can disadvantage women founders even without explicit exclusion if they are less embedded in investor networks and therefore have fewer opportunities to build the repeated visibility and trust on which relationship-based funding depends.

Unequal Care and Time Burdens Help Explain Why Access to Those Networks Is Not Equal

Fundraising is not just about having a strong idea or writing a pitch deck. It requires repeated meetings, networking, travel, follow-up, and sustained visibility — all of which take time. And time is precisely what women in Armenia are more likely to lack. A 2021 IFC and World Bank study of more than 400 Armenian businesses found that women were more likely than men to report lack of time and work-life balance as obstacles (International Finance Corporation, 2021).

These pressures become more consequential when supportive conditions around care are weak. The World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law profile scores Armenia at 75 out of 100 on legal frameworks, but only 45 out of 100 on supportive frameworks, with childcare supportive frameworks at 0 (World Bank, 2026). The practical implication is that care remains unevenly distributed and women bear more of the time cost. When fathers are not strongly supported or incentivized to share childcare responsibilities, women have less flexibility for the intensity that early-stage entrepreneurship often demands.

The problem is likely exacerbated by the network design. The problem may be exacerbated by the timing of networking events. For example, Startup Grind Yerevan’s Pitch Battle on 15 January 2025 was scheduled for 18:30–20:30, with representatives of angel investor networks among its judges (Startup Grind, 2025). Armenia’s National Services Gateway states that most kindergartens close at 17:30, with some extending to 18:30 (National Services Gateway, n.d.). Attending such evening events may therefore require additional childcare arrangements, potentially limiting participation among founders with substantial care responsibilities.

In that sense, the care burden is not separate from the capital access problem. It is one of the conditions that helps explain why women may have weaker access to the networks, meetings, and repeated relationship-building through which early startup funding often flows. This is why childcare policy should not be treated as unrelated to startup finance. In the Armenian context, it forms part of the wider structure that shapes who can participate fully in entrepreneurial life.

Policy Recommendations

The evidence in this brief suggests that Armenia should address gender gaps in startup capital on two fronts simultaneously. The first is the funding market itself: who gets seen, introduced, and funded in a small, network-dependent ecosystem. The second is the time constraints brought about by uneven allocation of household duties and childcare that shape who can participate fully in that market. Policy should therefore focus not only on improving women founders’ access to investors, but also on reducing the structural constraints that make that access unequal in the first place.

Build a Gender-disaggregated Startup Funding Dashboard

The first priority is visibility. Armenia should begin systematically tracking founder gender across grants, accelerator cohorts, startup competitions, angel-backed deals, and venture investments that involve public or donor support. Without basic visibility on who gets funded, the debate will continue to rely on partial signals and anecdotes. This tracking should cover not only the number of women-led teams funded, but also ticket size, stage, and follow-on outcomes. A stronger evidence base would make it easier to identify where the gap is largest and whether existing support programs are helping to close it.

Make Investor Access More Inclusive and Less Dependent on Informal Evening Networking

A second priority is to widen the channels through which founders can reach investors. Public and donor-backed startup programs should create more daytime networking opportunities, more online investor sessions, more structured introductions, and less reliance on informal evening gatherings as the main route into capital. In a small ecosystem, relationship-building may remain essential. But if that is the case, then the formats through which relationships are built should not systematically advantage founders with fewer care constraints and easier access to late-evening social environments. Making investor access more inclusive is not a peripheral adjustment. It is part of improving how the market works.

Strengthen Shared Childcare Support as Part of the Economic Infrastructure

Better access to startup capital cannot be separated entirely from the wider care environment, although childcare support should be understood as an enabling condition rather than a stand-alone solution to the funding gap. The evidence does not show that better childcare arrangements automatically translate into better startup funding outcomes. However, it does show that care and time constraints shape women’s ability to participate fully in entrepreneurial activity. Armenia should therefore treat shared childcare support as part of the economic infrastructure that makes entrepreneurship more feasible, not as a substitute for finance and network reforms. This means improving childcare availability and affordability, encouraging fathers’ active participation in care, protecting men who use care-related leave or flexible work arrangements, and using public messaging to frame childcare as a shared responsibility. For women founders, the expected benefit is practical: more time and flexibility for networking, travel, investor meetings, and sustained visibility. Startup programs can reinforce this by offering hybrid participation, flexible scheduling, and childcare support where feasible.

Overall Recommendation

Taken together, the evidence reviewed in this brief supports a combined policy response rather than a single intervention. Armenia should improve gender-disaggregated startup funding data, broaden women founders’ access to investors through more inclusive and structured networking channels, and treat shared childcare support as complementary economic infrastructure. This approach reflects the literature’s broader finding that funding gaps can arise from both investor-side mechanisms and unequal access to the networks, signals, and conditions needed to compete for startup capital. In Armenia’s small and network-dependent ecosystem, addressing these constraints together is likely to be more effective than treating the funding gap as a stand-alone financing problem.

Concluding Remarks

This brief suggests that gender gaps in startup capital in Armenia are not simply a matter of who pitches better or who investors prefer. They reflect a deeper interaction between market structure and care structure: a small, network-dependent funding ecosystem on the one hand, and unequal time and childcare burdens on the other. As a result, women’s weaker access to startup funding should be understood not only as a gender gap in outcomes, but also as a question of how entrepreneurial opportunity is organized.

The implication is clear. Armenia should address this problem not only by widening women founders’ access to investors, but also by reducing the structural constraints that make that access unequal in the first place. A more open funding market, combined with stronger support for shared care, would not only improve fairness but also strengthen the system. It would also strengthen the reach and overall effectiveness of the Armenian startup ecosystem.

References

  • 2carrots VC Database. Accessed September 20, 2026.
  • Alexy, Oliver T., Joern H. Block, Philipp Sandner, and Anne L. J. Ter Wal, “Social capital of venture capitalists and start-up funding,” Small Business Economics, April 2011, 39 (4), 835–851.
  • Bellucci, Andrea, Gianluca Gucciardi, Rossella Locatelli, and Cristiana-Maria Schena, “Gender Gap in Business Angel Financing,” Entrepreneurship Research Journal, May 2024, 15 (2), 289–324.
  • Guzman, Jorge and Aleksandra (Olenka) Kacperczyk, “Gender gap in entrepreneurship,” Research Policy, September 2019, 48 (7), 1666–1680.
  • International Finance Corporation, “Women Entrepreneurship Study in Armenia: Qualitative and Quantitative Study, Synthesis Report,” Technical Report, International Finance Corporation, Yerevan, Armenia March 2021.
  • Kanze, Dana, Laura Huang, Mark A. Conley, and E. Tory Higgins, “We Ask Men to Win and Women Not to Lose: Closing the Gender Gap in Startup Funding,” Academy of Management Journal, April 2018, 61 (2), 586–614.
  • Kanze, Dana, Mark A. Conley, Tyler G. Okimoto, Damon J. Phillips, and Jennifer Merluzzi, “Evidence that investors penalize female founders for lack of industry fit,” Science Advances, November 2020, 6 (48).
  • Koch, Laura H., Elisabeth S. C. Berger, and Andreas Kuckertz, “Gender bias and discrimination towards women entrepreneurs by venture capitalists – a randomized response survey,” Venture Capital, April 2025, p. 1–27.
  • Lassébie, Julie, Sahra Sakha, Tomasz Kozluk, Carlo Menon, Stefano Breschi, and Nick Johnstone, “Levelling the Playing Field: Dissecting the Gender Gap in the Funding of Startups,” Technical Report, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development April 2019. Approved by the Committee on Industry, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) on 8 April 2019.
  • Liao, Zhenyu, Jack H. Zhang, Nan Wang, William P. Bottom, Dirk Deichmann, and Pok Man Tang, “The Gendered Liability of Venture Novelty,” Academy of Management Journal, April 2024, 67 (2), 299–330.
  • Seedstars, 2025. “How Armenia built an ecosystem bigger than its borders”. Accessed June September 21, 2026.
  • OECD, Bridging the Finance Gap for Women Entrepreneurs: Insights from Academic and Policy Research OECD Studies on SMEs and Entrepreneurship, OECD Publishing, 2025.
  • Siegrist, Felicia, “Supporting Women Entrepreneurs in Developing Countries: What Works? A Review of the Evidence Base and We-Fi’s Theory of Change,” Technical Report, Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, Washington, D.C. July 2022.
  • Ubfal, Diego Javier, “What Works in Supporting Women-Led Businesses?,” Policy Research Working Paper WPS10744, World Bank Group, Washington, D.C. April 2024.
  • World Bank, “Women, Business and the Law: Armenia Country Profile,” Technical Report, World Bank Group 2026.

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

Discrimination in Work Conditions: The Case of Sexual Harassment

Posted on March 9, 2026 | Policy Brief

Blurred silhouettes of office workers behind glass symbolizing discrimination work conditions in a modern workplace environment.

The #MeToo movement put a spotlight on the severe and highly prevalent workplace problem of sexual harassment. New research argues that economists should treat sexual harassment as gender discrimination in work conditions. Both men and women are subject to this discrimination when their gender is in the minority in the workplace. These patterns reinforce segregation in the labor market and, by extension, economic gender inequality. By reducing the prevalence of sexual harassment, we not only reduce individual suffering but also have positive impacts at a societal level.

Introduction

Throughout the world, the sorting of women into lower-paying occupations and workplaces fundamentally determines economic gender inequality (see Penner et al. 2023 for an overview). The academic discussion about causes of this gender segregation typically centers on gender differences in preferences for work conditions. Women who have more responsibilities for children and the household prefer occupations and workplaces with more flexible schedules, work-from-home opportunities, and shorter commutes. To get these good work conditions (so-called work amenities), they accept jobs in occupations and workplaces with lower wages (Goldin 2014, Wiswall and Zafar 2016, Mas and Pallais 2017, Le Barbachon et al. 2019).

There is mounting evidence that the interpersonal work environment also matters greatly for job choices. Workers seem to put a large negative value on negative interpersonal work conditions such as hostility, bullying, and sexual harassment (see, for example, Folke and Ricke 2022, Collis and Van Effenterrre 2025, and Le Page et al. 2025). Unlike traditional amenities related to aspects such as schedule flexibility, training, or bonuses, the social work environment does not form part of the employment contract and is not under direct control of the employer. This implies that even among the most well-intentioned employers, the social work environment could differ across individuals – and, in particular, between men and women.

Gender differences in exposure to negative social behaviors may meet the standard definition of discrimination in empirical economics research. The mistreatment may imply that women and men with the same qualifications doing the same job receive different pay. Women and men may have the exact same job contracts and receive the exact same compensation on paper, but one gender may be exposed to negative treatment that dramatically reduces their total payoff from the job.

Sexual Harassment and Gender Inequality in the Labor Market

Folke and Rickne (2022) study how sexual harassment by colleagues and managers affects gender segregation across workplaces and, by extension, gender inequality in the labor market. The starting point is a general equilibrium model where the total pay of a job is a function of the wage and the gender-specific sexual harassment risk.

The model shows that sexual harassment leads to larger gender inequality in the labor market under three conditions. Sexual harassment risks need to increase in the share of opposite sex co-workers, wages should increase in the share of men in the workplace, and sexual harassment should affect labor market choices. The model explains that sexual harassment creates gender segregation by operating as a wedge in the payoff from jobs in gender-imbalanced workplaces. All else equal, women get a lower total compensation in male-dominated workplaces, and vice versa for men in female-dominated ones. This will create gender segregation as both women and men have smaller incentives to become a workplace gender minority. It will also create a larger gender wage gap by channeling women into lower-paying workplaces and men toward higher-paying ones.

Harassment Risks and Pay Across Workplaces

To empirically assess how harassment risks vary across workplaces, Folke and Rickne (2022) use survey data on self-reported sexual harassment from the Swedish government’s biannual survey on work conditions (N=40,000). This nationally representative survey contains questions on unwanted sexual advances, sexist hostility, and gender harassment from colleagues or managers in the last 12 months. The survey data can be linked to administrative data on the full Swedish workforce, enabling the computation of the share of men in each survey respondent’s occupation and workplace.

The relationship between self-reported harassment and sex ratios is shown in Figure 1. Clearly, both women and men self-report more harassment when they are the gender-minority in their workplace. The higher self-reported rate of harassment among gender minorities is not caused by systematically different demographic traits. Nor is it caused by gender minorities being more likely to have opposite-sex supervisors, or to themselves hold subordinate or supervisory positions, or by them having opposite-sex managers. Folke and Rickne (2025) show that these patterns also hold at the occupation level.

Figure 1. Sexual Harassment Incidence across Workplace Sex Ratios.

Source: Replication of the left-hand side of Figure II in Folke and Rickne (2022). Note: The figure shows binned averages of a binary variable for self-reports of sexual harassment in the last 12 months from colleagues or managers. Each sub-sample of men and women is split into 100 equally sized bins of the X-variable. N=19,975 for women, and 17,482 for men.

To examine how wages relate to sex composition, Folke and Rickne (2022) rely on the empirical framework developed by Abowd et al. (1999). This framework estimates workplace fixed effects in a wage regression that also includes individual fixed effects and a host of occupational and demographic controls. The workplace fixed effects (i.e., the wage premiums) capture how much a workplace pays in wages compared to other workplaces with the same occupation structure and workers’ socio-economic traits. The analysis shows that a 10-percentage-point larger share of men is, on average, associated with a 1-percentage-point higher wage premium.

To summarize the first set of results, male-dominated workplaces pay more. At the same time, both men and women face a higher risk of sexual harassment when they work in an occupation or workplace with more men. The combination of these results suggests that women have an incentive to work in lower-paying jobs, while men have an additional incentive to work in high-paying jobs.

Sexual Harassment and Job Choice

Sexual harassment can affect job choice in two ways: it can deter an individual from taking a job, or make a person leave a job that they have previously chosen. Folke and Rickne (2022) examine both these channels.

To examine if sexual harassment risks deter individuals from taking a job, Folke and Rickne (2022) use a survey experiment sent to ~4,000 employed Swedish citizens. The survey experiment follows the standard economic approach of exposing respondents to a hypothetical job choice experiment where they choose between fictional job offers with randomized wages and work conditions (for prominent examples of this approach, see, for example, Wiswall and Zafar 2017 and Mas and Pallais 2017).

Sexual harassment was incorporated into the experiment by showing respondents vignettes of sexual harassment incidents that took place in fictional workplaces (as in Hulin, Fitzgerald, and Drasgow 1996). These vignettes mimic the types of anecdotes or rumors that a prospective employee might hear about a potential employer. Importantly, the vignettes make it possible to vary the victim’s gender, which allows comparison of job choices among respondents who are exposed to a harassment victim of their own gender and respondents exposed to a victim of the opposite gender.

The experiment showed a large negative valuation of sexual harassment—the equivalent of a 10% lower wage in the full sample. This large valuation makes sexual harassment a relevant work condition for shaping people’s total remuneration from work and is quantitatively similar to the valuations of time/space flexibility in previous research (Wiswall and Zafar 2017; Mas and Pallais 2017; Maestas et al. 2018). While men and women had similar valuations, there was a substantial difference between those who see a victim of their own sex compared to the opposite sex: the negative valuation is equivalent to a 17% lower wage for same-sex victims but just 6% for opposite-sex ones.

Figure 2. Event Study of Workplace Transitions.

Source: Replication of Figure V in Folke and Rickne (2022). Note: The figure shows estimated differences in the proportion of employer-to-employer transitions out of the workplace in the Work Environment Survey between people who self-report sexual harassment in that survey or not. The X-axis denotes the number of years since the survey. Demographics controls from administrative records are four dummies for marital and parental status, four dummies for age categories, two dummies for having secondary or tertiary education, and two dummies for being born in a different European country or outside Europe.

Folke and Rickne (2022) rely on the work-environment survey matched to the administrative data to show that sexual harassment also affects the probability of leaving a workplace. Conditional on a host of controls, women who report sexual harassment are about 5 percentage points more likely to have left their workplace 3 years after having answered the survey than women who did not report sexual harassment. The equivalent gap for men was about 3 percentage points.

Conclusions

The case study of sexual harassment in Sweden highlights this work condition as an important barrier to gender equality in the labor market. It shows a higher prevalence of sexual harassment for workplace gender minorities and how it imposes costs on these minorities relative to their gender majority colleagues. The disincentive created by sexual harassment to become—and remain—a workplace gender minority reinforces gender segregation across workplaces. The gender wage gap also grows as women prefer not enter male-dominated workplaces with higher pay, or leave these workplaces and head to ones with more women and lower monetary compensation.  These macroeconomic impacts add to the “business case” for governments to prevent sexual harassment.

Sexual harassment is just one of many forms of discrimination in work conditions that could reinforce inequalities in the labor market. If we want to reduce gender inequality, it is clearly not enough to focus on gender differences in preferences for work conditions. We also need to pay attention to factors, such as sexual harassment, that lead to men and women facing different work conditions in the same job. Addressing this form of discrimination could not only yield large payoffs for individual well-being but also reduce inequalities in the labor market.

References

  • Abowd, J.M., Kramarz, F. and Margolis, D.N., 1999. High wage workers and high wage firms. Econometrica, 67(2), pp.251-333.
  • Folke, O. and Rickne, J., 2022. Sexual harassment and gender inequality in the labor market. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 137(4), pp.2163-2212.
  • Folke, O., & Rickne, J. (2025). Sexual harassment across occupations: new evidence from Swedish Nationally representative data. European Sociological Review, 41(6), 903-918.
  • Collis, M.R. and Van Effenterre, C., 2025. Workplace Hostility. IZA-Institute of Labor Economics.
  • Goldin, C. (2014). A grand gender convergence: Its last chapter. American Economic Review, 104(4): 1091-1119.
  • Hulin, C.L., Fitzgerald, L.F. and Drasgow, F., 1996. Organizational influences on sexual harassment. Sage Publications, Inc.
  • Le Barbanchon, T., Rathelot, R. and Roulet, A., 2021. Gender differences in job search: Trading off commute against wage. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 136(1), pp.381-426.
  • Lepage, L.P., Li, X. and Zafar, B., 2025. Anticipated discrimination and major choice (No. w33680). National Bureau of Economic Research
  • Maestas, N., Mullen, K.J., Powell, D., Von Wachter, T. and Wenger, J.B., 2023. The value of working conditions in the United States and implications for the structure of wages. American Economic Review, 113(7), pp.2007-2047.
  • Mas, A, and A Pallais (2017), “Valuing Alternative Work Arrangements”, American Economic Review, 107(12): 3722–3759.
  • Penner, A.M., Petersen, T., Hermansen, A.S., Rainey, A., Boza, I., Elvira, M.M., Godechot, O., Hällsten, M., Henriksen, L.F., Hou, F. and Mrčela, A.K., 2023. Within-job gender pay inequality in 15 countries. Nature human behaviour, 7(2), pp.184-189.
  • Wiswall, M. & Zafar, B. (2017). Preference for the workplace, investment in human capital, and gender. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 133(1): 457-507.

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

Gender Board Diversity Across Europe Throughout Four Decades

Posted on December 16, 2024 | Policy Brief

Top-down view of a team analyzing Gender Board Diversity statistics in a corporate setting.

Despite comprising a large share of the workforce, women remain a minority in corporate boardrooms across Europe. While progress has been made in recent decades among public (listed) firms, diversity lags behind in private corporations. This policy brief showcases evidence from the Gender Board Diversity Dataset (GBDD) – a newly released, unique data source which covers a comprehensive sample of European private and public corporations over multiple decades. Uniquely, the GBDD encompasses private (non-listed) companies, a novel method for identifying the gender of board members based on linguistic and cultural heuristics, and a cross-country harmonization of firm-level data. These features make the GBDD a great tool for answering policy-related questions and enable cross-country and cross-sector comparisons. As such, the GBDD can help ensure that policies aimed at promoting gender board diversity are scientifically well grounded.

Background

The labor force participation rate of women in Europe has been rising over the last few decades and is approaching the participation rate of men. However, the proportion of company board positions held by women is still significantly lower. This issue has generated heated debate among academics (e.g. see Nguyen et al., 2020, for a recent literature review) as well as among the general public. It has also prompted several countries to mandate gender quotas for some companies (typically public companies or the largest limited liability companies). For example, in Norway, large and medium-size firms are mandated to guarantee that both women and men account for at least 40 percent of board members. Given the increasing proliferation of mandated gender board quotas across countries, it is imperative that the public be aware of the main facts concerning gender board diversity in a broad set of companies i.e. those that make up the largest proportion of the economy, offer the majority of jobs, and often remain outside the scope of quota legislation.

The Gender Board Diversity Dataset

The Gender Board Diversity Dataset (GBDD), created by Drazkowski, Tyrowicz, and Zalas (2024), provides a novel cross-country perspective on women in management and supervisory boards over the past four decades. The GBDD is based on firm-level registry data from Orbis, which the authors have harmonized to ensure comparability across countries. A key feature of the GBDD is that it covers registry information from both public and private (non-listed) companies. This makes it a comprehensive source of information as the majority of board positions, as well as the majority of jobs in general, are in private rather than public companies. Data on private companies are scarce, and the GBDD is one of very few data sources containing this information across Europe. The GBDD is based on a sample of over 28 million unique firms from 43 European countries observed, on average, for around seven years. It contains information about nearly 59 million individuals who sit on management and supervisory boards and covers the period between 1985 and 2020.

Another key component of the GBDD is the identification of the gender of board members, which is a key innovation compared to other studies that use Orbis data. While the original data do not specify the gender of individuals until 2010, they do include names and surnames, which the creators utilized to perform gender identification. By applying cultural and linguistic heuristics, they were able to determine the gender of over 99 percent of the board members in their sample. For example, in some languages (e.g. Czech), surnames end with a gender-specific suffix, while in other languages (e.g. Polish), given names of women end with a vowel.

The GBDD reports several measures of gender board diversity computed for countries over time, as well as for sectors in each country over time. As such, it is a unique source of information about gender board diversity in corporate Europe, and it can serve as a useful guide for policymakers and analysts. The data are publicly available and can be downloaded in various formats from the website of the authors’ research group: https://grape.org.pl/gbdd.

The Absence of Women in Boardrooms

A key insight emerging from the GBDD is that, despite women holding on average 22 percent of all board positions in a given industry, more than two-thirds of all firms report no women in their boardrooms. More specifically, 68 percent of sectors across the European continent over the past several decades have not had a single firm with at least one woman in their boardrooms. Figure 1 shows the fraction of firms in a sector with no women in the boardroom. This is a new measure in the literature. The x-axis shows the proportion of such firms in a sector, ranging from 0 (all firms in that sector have at least one woman on their boards) to 1 (women are absent from all corporate boardrooms in the entire sector). The y-axis shows the relative number of sectors in the sample for each of the observed fractions.

Figure 1. Fraction of firms with no women in the boardroom

Note: The figure details the distribution (countries and years are combined). Source: Drazkowski, Tyrowicz, and Zalas (2024).

This finding points to clusters of companies with potentially significant obstacles to gender board diversity. Since lack of representation could be considered a major barrier to diversity, policies aimed at promoting even minimal representation of women among board members could have a significant impact on overall diversity.

The Substantial Differences Between Industries and Countries

The average firm-level share of women on corporate boards is only around 16 percent in the IT sector, while it is 35 percent in the education, health, and care (EHC) sector. Figure 2 shows two distributions of the average firm-level shares of women among board members: one for the IT sector and the other for the EHC sector. The distribution for the EHC sector is clearly to the right relative to the distribution for the IT sector, which means that across multiple countries and years, women tend to constitute a much smaller proportion of board members in the IT sector than in the EHC sector. Furthermore, the proportion of observations with no female board members (the spike at value 0) is much higher in the IT sector than in the EHC sector.

Figure 2. Distribution across sectors

Note: Distribution of the firm-level share of women on boards across countries and years in two broad sectors. The following categories make up the two sectors. IT: 61, 62, 63; Education, health & care: 85, 86, 87. Source: GBDD.

Decomposing the data by country also highlights significant differences. For example, firms with no female board members tend to be more prevalent in Poland than in Finland. This is illustrated in Figure 3, where the distribution for Poland is shifted to the right relative to the distribution for Finland.

Figure 3. Distribution across countries

Note: Distributions of the share of firms in an industry with no female board members (Finland vs Poland). Source: GBDD.

The above data suggest that there may exist a set of sector- and country-specific barriers to gender board diversity. Therefore, policies tailored to addressing those specific barriers could be more appropriate than blanket economy-wide policies.

Diversity Has Mildly Increased

The GBDD can also be used to assess how gender board diversity has evolved over time. Generally, there was an increase in diversity in the 1990s, stagnation in the 2000s, and another increase in the 2010s. However, in the case of supervisory boards, the recent increase in the proportion of female board members was not accompanied by an increase in the number of women on supervisory boards. While the full explanation of this observation would require further research, one possible interpretation is that supervisory boards might have become smaller over time, with male board members accounting for most of the decline, thus mechanically increasing the share of female board members.

Conclusion

Despite the increase in gender diversity among company board members over the last three decades, women still comprise a smaller share of board members and, in many cases, are completely absent from boards. While examining the reasons for this is beyond the scope of this policy brief, the high prevalence of firms with no women on their boards suggests the possibility that significant barriers to entry for women still exist, with this total lack of representation in many companies potentially being one. Policymakers interested in fostering an inclusive and fair society could focus their attention on understanding and removing barriers to board participation faced by women. Furthermore, identifying and tackling country- and sector-specific barriers to board diversity could be particularly impactful. The GBDD can be used by researchers and non-researchers alike to gain further insights into this topic, thus contributing to evidence-based policymaking.

Acknowledgement

The research outlined in this policy brief was funded by Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014–2021 (grant # 2019/34/H/HS4/00481).

References

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

“Active Parent”: Addressing Labor Market Disadvantages of Mothers in Poland

Posted on November 12, 2024 | Policy Brief

A working mother in Poland multitasking with her child, representing Active Parent Poland.

In 2023 only one out of four children aged 0-3 years was covered by the Polish system of formal childcare. Traditional social norms with regard to provision of childcare at home, together with high costs of existing formal and informal childcare arrangements constitute important constraints with regard to labor market participation among mothers with the youngest children. While labor market activity rate among women aged 25-49 years stands at 84 percent overall, it is more than 20 percentage points lower for mothers with children aged 1-3 years. In this policy brief we provide an overview and an evaluation of “Active parent”, a recently introduced policy aimed at supporting earlier return to work after birth among mothers in Poland. We argue that the success of the program will be strongly determined by the extent to which it manages to stimulate growth of high-quality formal childcare for those aged 0-3 in the next few years.

Gender Gaps in Employment and Childcare in Poland

The average labor market activity rate among women aged 25-49 in Poland stands at 84 percent, which is slightly above the EU average (by 2 p.p.; see Figure 1). The rate, however, differs substantially by age group, and even more by the number and age of children. For childless women just below 30 years, the activity rate almost exactly matches the rate for men (88 percent vs 90 percent). However, among women with children, and especially among those with the youngest child being between 1 and 3 years old, this number drops to 62 percent. For fathers with such children, the activity rate however stands at 98 percent. Women gradually return to work when the youngest child is growing up – 3 out of 4 of those with a child aged 4 to 6 years are active in the labor market, and this share grows to 84 percent for mothers of teenagers (aged 13-14 years). At the same time women in Poland are much less likely to work part-time than women in the EU on average (7 vs. 28 percent, respectively; Eurostat, 2021). Rates of part-time employment are higher if women have more and younger children, though not by much (11 percent for mothers of 3+ children, 10 percent when a child is up to 3 years old; PEI, 2022).

While in most Polish households with children both parents are working for pay, traditional gender norms still largely prevail with respect to providing childcare or handling household duties. According to a survey conducted by the Polish Economic Institute (PEI), in only 18 percent of double-earner families do both parents take care of a child to the same extent (Polish Economic Institute 2022). For 68 percent of such families, it is the mother who provides most care. In only 1 in 10 families the father is the main care provider.

Figure 1. Labor market activity rates in Poland in 2022

Source: Authors’ compilation based on: PEI, 2022; Eurostat.

Traditional attitudes towards childcare responsibility are clearly visible in the actual gender split of parental leave in Poland. Despite the introduction of a non-transferable 9-week long parental leave dedicated to fathers (out of the total of 41 weeks of parental leave) on top of a two-week paternity leave, the division of care duties for the youngest children has essentially remained unaffected. While 377 000 mothers claimed parental leave benefits in 2021, only 4 000 fathers decided to stay at home with their child (Social Insurance Institute, 2021). Besides, many fathers still do not exercise their right to the fortnight of the paternity leave. According to the PEI survey conducted among parents of children aged 1-9 years, 41 percent of fathers reported virtually no work gap after the birth of their child and further 43 percent acknowledged only a short break from work (up to 14 days). On the other hand, 85 percent of mothers took a work break after childbirth of more than 8 months. For 40 percent it lasted between 12-18 months and for 28 percent the separation from work exceeded one and a half years.

Evaluating the Consequences of the “Active Parent” Program

To address the resulting disadvantages for mothers on the labor market the current Polish government introduced a program called “Active parent” in October 2024. The program is targeted at parents of children aged 12 to 35 months and consists of 3 options. The highest benefits in the program amounting to 350 EUR per month, are granted within the “Active at work” option to households in which parents are active on the labor market. For couples, the minimum work requirement is half-time work for each parent, while lone parents are required to work full-time. The same monthly amount can be granted if the child is enrolled in institutionalized childcare (“Active in nursery” option), though in this case the benefit does not exceed the cost of the nursery. This option covers both formal public or private nursery as well as semi-formal care provided in “kids clubs”. Finally, in case the child stays at home with a non-working parent (“Active at home” option), the family receives 115 EUR per month.

The main objective of the program is to increase the number of women returning to work after the period of maternity and parental leave (which in Poland cover the first 12 months of a newborn), before the child becomes eligible for kindergarten (where a place for each child aged 3 to 6 years is to be guaranteed by the local government). It is worth noting that after exhausting the parental leave, Polish parents are entitled to up to 3 years of childcare leave. Though this is unpaid, many parents, once again almost entirely mothers, opt for staying at home, often due to the lack of alternative forms of childcare. For children under the age of 3, formal childcare is highly limited. In 2023, nursery places were available only to one out of four children aged 0-3 years (CSO Poland). Additionally, these places are unevenly accessible throughout the country – in 2023 formal childcare for the youngest kids (public or private) did not exist in as many as 45 percent of Polish municipalities (CSO Poland). At the same time, while family help with childcare in Poland is still provided on a massive scale, it is limited only to those who have parents or other family members living close by, already in retirement and without other caring obligations (e.g. for older generations).

Within the new program parents who receive the “Active at work” benefit have complete discretion of how to use these funds. Many may choose to send the child to a formal childcare institution, but the lawmakers also expect a surge in undertaking formal contracts with grandparents or other relatives – including those already in retirement. There’s an additional benefit embedded in this particular solution, namely social security contributions resulting from contracts concluded with “a carer” (regardless of if it is a third person or a family member) which are covered by the state. These contributions are added to the carer’s pension funds and translate into higher retirement benefits – with regular recalculations of pension funds among those already retired and higher expected pension benefits for those still below retirement age.

A recent policy report (Myck, Krol and Oczkowska, 2024), evaluated the impact of the “Active parent” program using the microsimulation model SIMPL. The analysis (based on the Polish Household Budget Survey from 2021) focused on the estimation of the expected costs of the program to the public budget and the distribution of financial gains among households. We find that families eligible to receive support, i.e. those with children aged 12-35 months, are concentrated in the upper half of the income distribution (12.6 percent among the richest households and only 5.4 percent living in the poorest households). Thus, taking the observed work and childcare use patterns from the data we find that the average net gains related to the entire “Active parent” program are also concentrated among the richer households (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Average net monthly gain from the “Active parent” program, assuming no change in parental behavior in reaction to the roll-out of the program

Source: Authors’ calculation with SIMPL microsimulation model based on the Polish Household Budget Survey 2021 data, indexed to 2024. Note: Introduction of the new program automatically withdrew the existing support targeted at families with children in the respective age range: “Family Childcare Fund” of 115 EUR/month for families with the second or next child aged 12-35 months and the co-payment for nursery up to 90 EUR/month. 1 EUR = 4.3 PLN.

Households from the highest income decile group on average gain 220 EUR per month, while those from the poorest income group receive 170 EUR per month. In relative terms, these gains correspond on average to as much as 17 percent of their income, while for the former group the gains do not exceed 4 percent of their income. When disaggregating by the three options of the program, eligible households from the bottom part of the distribution receive much higher gains from the “Active in nursery” or “Active at home” options, as these households are much less likely to have both parents working.

Clearly, some parents may adjust their work and childcare choices in reaction to the introduction of the program, which, in fact, is one of its key objectives. If a family decides to take up work or send their child to a nursery, they become eligible for higher support. Rather than receiving 115 EUR from the “Active at home” option, they become eligible for up to 350 EUR under the other alternative options. In almost 200 000 out of the overall 550 000 families with an age-eligible child, one of the parents (usually the mother) is observed to be out of work. Using this, we estimate the likelihood of taking up work among these non-working mothers and conditional on the expected probabilities of employment we assigned additional families to the two more generous options of the program – either to “Active at work” (those with highest work probability) or to “Active in nursery” (those with lowest work probability). This allows us to evaluate potential changes in the cost and distributional implications of the program under different scenarios. Table 1 presents a set of “gross” and “net” costs of selected combinations of parental reactions. The “gross” costs correspond to the total expenditure of the “Active parent” program, while the “net” costs account first for the withdrawal of previous policies (see note to Figure 2), and second for the budget gains related to taxes and social insurance contributions paid by the parents who are simulated to take up work.

Table 1. “Active parent”: aggregate costs to the public budget under different assumptions concerning work and childcare adjustments among parents

Source: see Figure 2.

Assuming no change in parental behavior (0 percent increase in work and 0 percent increase in enrollment in nursery), the total, “gross” cost of the program for the public finances amounts to 1.72 bn EUR, on average, annually. Savings related to the withdrawal of existing policies lower this cost by 0.5 bn EUR. Any modelled increase in nursery enrollment (with no concurrent reaction in the labor market) means an increase in both the “gross” and the “net” costs, while on the other hand an increase in labor market participation of the non-working parent (when nursery enrollment is held constant) expands the “gross” costs but reduces the “net” costs due to higher taxes and contributions paid in relation to simulated additional earnings.

The final distributional household effects of the program will depend on the actual reactions among parents. However, according to our simulations, the families who are most likely to either increase employment of the second parent or sign up their child for a nursery, and, thus, gain from  the “Active at work” or “Active in nursery” options, are those currently located in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th income decile group in the distribution (for more details see: Myck, Krol and Oczkowska, 2024).

Conclusion

The main objective behind the introduction of the new “Active parent” scheme is to increase the labor market participation among mothers with the youngest children. As the program aims to facilitate balancing professional careers with family life among parents, it can also be expected to contribute to increases in the fertility rate, which has recently fallen in Poland from 1.45 in 2017 to 1.16 in 2023 (CSO Poland).

The success of the “Active parent” program should be evaluated with respect to three important indicators:

  • the resulting increase in the number of mothers who have taken up work,
  • the increase in the number of children registered for nurseries,
  • and, related to the latter – the increase in the availability of childcare places in different Polish municipalities.

It is worth noting that the “Active parent” program was introduced in parallel with the prior “Toddler +” program that aimed at creating new childcare institutions and more places in the existing ones in 2022-2029 in Poland. Central funding was distributed to reach these goals among local governments and private care providers. However, a 2024 midterm audit of the “Toddler +” program demonstrated the progress to be “insufficient and lagging” (Supreme Audit Office Poland, 2024). The “Active parent” program will play an important role in providing additional stimulus to the provision of new childcare places for the youngest kids in different Polish regions, which should help the “Toddler +” program to finally gather momentum. In the medium and long run, the development of high-quality formal childcare for children below 3 years will be a crucial determinant of an increase in early return to work among mothers.

Acknowledgment

The authors wish to acknowledge the support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) under the FROGEE project. The views presented in the Policy Brief reflect the opinions of the Authors and do not necessarily overlap with the position of the FREE Network or Sida.

References

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

A Gender Perspective on Financing for Development

Posted on May 29, 2024 | Policy Brief

Featuring scene with women walking between tall columns casting long shadows representing gender equality financing.

Gender equality should be considered a global public good due to its extensive benefits for both society and the environment. Investing in gender equality as a global public good necessitates a coordinated international effort, which should be a focal point in discussions on the future of development financing. The upcoming Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) in 2025 in Madrid, Spain, provides a crucial opportunity to assess the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and allow countries to refine their strategies. However, recent background documents lack an explicit focus on opportunities for advancing gender equality, which was also inadequately addressed in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda formulated at the previous FfD conference in 2015. This brief is based on the first of a series of roundtables, organized by the Center for Sustainable Development (CSD) at Brookings, aimed at providing inputs on this critical topic in the lead-up to the Madrid conference.

Financing for development relies on three main pillars: domestic resource mobilization; development assistance; and other sources of international financing. The latter category includes both private and public sources that emerge in response to the need for a global safety net and social protection system, especially in light of increasing risks from pandemics and climate-related shocks. This policy brief is an attempt to highlight how gender considerations may integrate into each of these pillars. It builds on insights from the first Center for Sustainable Development roundtable, discussing this important issue in preparation for the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in 2025.

Domestic Resource Mobilization

Fiscal policy plays a critical role in addressing gender gaps, particularly in low-income economies with limited fiscal space. Fiscal policies, including tax systems and public spending, must be designed to consider their gender-specific impacts. For the spending side, several initiatives are promoting tools like gender responsive budgeting, as has been recently discussed in a FROGEE policy paper by Anisimova et al. 2023, on the case of Ukraine.

One key area caregiving services. Caregiving, whether for children, the elderly, or other dependents, disproportionately affects women (see another FREE Network brief by Akulava et al. 2021) and remains largely invisible in economic policies. Many countries, especially outside of higher-income economies, lack universal caregiving services and infrastructure. This sector is significant for economic development and resilience, especially in the context of climate change, which is expected to increase the demands on caregiving due to displacement and health-related challenges. Therefore, integrating care into fiscal policy discussions is not only about gender equality but also about economic resilience and climate adaptation.

To address unpaid care work effectively, it is necessary to integrate care into public finance systems. This can involve developing public caregiving infrastructure and services that support both paid and unpaid caregivers. One first step in this direction would be the monitoring of household time-budgets, to start understanding and analyzing the supply of caregiving services that currently is largely undocumented.

Another policy area crucial for supporting women are social protection policies. In particular policies such as parental leave and childcare support can help reduce gender disparities in the labor market (see examples in the FREE Network brief by Campa, 2024). By providing a safety net, social protection policies enable women to participate more fully in economic activities without the constant threat of financial insecurity.

A specific challenge of the developing world in this respect is the fact that many women work in the informal sector and thereby lack access to social security benefits, leaving them vulnerable during economic hardships. Economic development alone does not solve this issue, as even many developed and wealthy countries lack comprehensive social protection systems. Therefore, a specific effort is needed to develop inclusive social protection systems that cover informal workers, ensuring women have access to benefits such as pensions, healthcare, and unemployment insurance.

Much less discussed is the integration of gender concerns in the taxation side of fiscal policy. Progressive taxation, where tax rates increase with higher income levels, is particularly beneficial for women, who are overrepresented in lower income quintiles. A progressive tax system can thus, besides helping redistribute wealth more equitably, also support gender equality.

Effective tax administration is crucial for improving compliance and maximizing revenue collection. However, it is particularly important in this context to design tax systems that minimize the compliance burden on low-income and informal sector workers, many of whom are women. This can be achieved by simplifying tax procedures and providing support for small and micro enterprises to navigate the tax system. The potential of digital tax systems is significant in this regard (Okunogbe, 2022). Digitalization can streamline tax collection, reduce administrative costs, and improve compliance. However, there are challenges associated with digital tax systems, particularly in ensuring accessibility for all citizens. Women, especially those in rural areas and with lower literacy levels, may face significant barriers in accessing and utilizing digital tax systems. Therefore, while digitalization offers many benefits, it must be implemented in a way that is inclusive and equitable. This includes providing digital literacy training and ensuring that digital tax platforms are user-friendly and accessible to all segments of the population.

Health taxes, such as those on tobacco, alcohol, and sugar-sweetened beverages, may also play a role in promoting gender equity. These taxes help reduce consumption of harmful products, which are disproportionately consumed by men and heavily affect household budgets. By discouraging the use of such products, health taxes can redirect household spending towards more beneficial areas, such as education and healthcare, which are often prioritized by women.

Moreover, health taxes can generate significant revenue that can be reinvested in gender-responsive public spending. For instance, funds raised from health taxes can be allocated to healthcare services, including reproductive health and maternal care, which directly benefit women. Additionally, excise taxes on harmful products address externalities, improving overall public health and reducing the burden on women who often provide unpaid health care.

Broader Sources of Financing for Social Services

The increasing risks from pandemics, climate-related shocks, food insecurity, and other economic shocks of a global nature highlight the need for a global safety net and social protection system. This in turn raises additional demand for effective financing for social services. One area in which new sources of international funding can be found is the emerging global infrastructure for climate finance.

Climate Finance and Gender Equality

Climate finance presents a unique opportunity to address gender equality, particularly in the context of climate adaptation and mitigation strategies. Due to (among others) resource constraints, unequal land ownership and unevenly distributed family responsibilities, women are often more vulnerable to climate impacts. Integrating gender considerations into climate adaptation and mitigation strategies ensures women are supported in building resilience.

One key approach is to use climate finance to promote economic diversification for women, especially in sectors like agriculture, where they play a significant role. For example, providing female farmers with access to capital, training, and resources to adopt climate-resilient agricultural practices can improve their economic security and reduce their vulnerability to climate shocks. This includes supporting transitions to sustainable farming methods, such as crop diversification, agroforestry, and improved irrigation techniques.

Additionally, climate finance can support the development of climate-resilient infrastructure that benefits women. This includes investments in clean energy, water management systems, and transportation networks that are essential for their daily activities and livelihoods. Ensuring that women have access to and can benefit from these infrastructures is crucial for their overall well-being and economic empowerment.

Women can play a pivotal role in natural resource management and environmental conservation. Research has shown that involving women in the management of natural resources, such as forests and water bodies, may lead to more sustainable and equitable outcomes. Women tend to prioritize long-term sustainability and community benefits, which can enhance the effectiveness of conservation efforts (see Agarwal, 2010. For a more nuanced view, see Meinzen-Dick, Kovarik and Quisumbing, 2014).

Climate finance can be used to support initiatives that empower women in natural resource management. This includes providing training and capacity-building programs that equip women with the knowledge and skills needed to manage resources effectively. Additionally, creating platforms for women to participate in decision-making processes related to environmental conservation ensures that their perspectives and needs are considered.

Innovative financing mechanisms can significantly enhance resources available for gender equality initiatives. Several potential sources of finance include Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), currency transaction taxes, and carbon taxes. Revenues generated from these sources can be directed towards climate and gender initiatives, such as supporting women’s participation in the green economy, funding renewable energy projects that benefit women, and investing in climate adaptation measures that protect vulnerable communities.

Development Assistance

Historically, development assistance explicitly targeted to gender equality initiatives has been insufficient. This has changed over time, but the overall financial support remains inadequate. Current ODA (Official Development Assistance) for gender equality often overestimates the actual financial support to such initiatives because it relies heavily on intention-based data rather than results-based financing. This means that the reported figures reflect commitments to gender-related projects without necessarily demonstrating their effectiveness or outcomes. As a result, the true impact of this funding for gender equality is difficult to ascertain.

In principle, development assistance should contribute to gender equality even beyond explicit targeting, simply through improving general economic conditions and generating opportunities. Economic development, after all, is good for gender equality (Duflo, 2012). The effectiveness of development assistance in promoting gender equality is however severely understudied, as discussed in Berlin et al. (2024) (and in a policy brief by Perrotta Berlin, Olofsgård and Smitt Meyer, 2023). We know that development assistance has a slight positive impact, and that gender-targeted aid projects tend to show somewhat larger impacts. But to learn more a more systematic reporting of donor activities is needed. This in particular when it comes to gender markers, i.e. the labeling of specific projects and programs as gender-oriented, that as of now are voluntary.

The effectiveness of gender-focused aid also heavily depends on local cultural dynamics and existing community norms. In some cases, aid aimed at improving economic opportunities for women can lead to negative reactions from men, a phenomenon known as backlash. Therefore, understanding and addressing these local cultural dynamics is crucial when designing and implementing gender-focused aid interventions.

Another critical aspect is the allocation of gender-targeted aid. It is essential to ensure that aid reaches the areas and communities where it is most needed. This requires a granular understanding of local needs and conditions, which is often lacking in broad, country-level data. More precise, geocoded data on aid distribution can help ensure that resources are allocated effectively and equitably. Improving the quality and granularity of data is also vital for monitoring and evaluating the impact of development assistance on gender equality. Current data collection efforts often fall short, lacking detailed, disaggregated information necessary for comprehensive analysis. National statistical agencies need more funding and support to collect this data, which is critical for understanding and addressing gender disparities.

Conclusions and Policy Recommendations

Advancing gender equality contributes to improved health outcomes, economic growth, and social stability. Moreover, gender equality plays a crucial role in addressing global challenges such as climate change, peacebuilding, and sustainable development. Therefore, it should be considered a global public good.

Investing in gender equality as a global public good requires a coordinated international effort. This includes mobilizing resources from various sources, including governments, international organizations, and the private sector. By recognizing the intrinsic value of gender equality and its contribution to global well-being, the international community can prioritize and allocate resources more effectively.

The discussion in this brief aims to highlight key areas that require focused efforts if the global community is to leverage gender equality to make progress toward the SDGs. In summary, enhanced data quality, integrated policies, innovative financing solutions, and gender-inclusive leadership are critical components of a strategy aimed at achieving lasting and meaningful progress in gender equality as well as broad sustainable development.

References

  • Agarwal, B. (2010). Does women’s proportional strength affect their participation? Governing local forests in South Asia. World development 38(1), 98-112.
  • Anisimova, A., Perrotta Berlin, M., Bosnic; M., Campa, P. Mych, M. Oczkowska, M. and Shapoval, N. (2023). Rebuilding Ukraine: the Gender Dimension of the Reconstruction Process. FREE Network Policy Paper.
  • Akulava, M., Babych, Y., Griogryan, A., Iarovskyi, P., Keshelava, D., Khachatryan, K., Król, A., Mikhailova, T., Mzhavanadze, G., Oczkowska, M., Pluta, A., Shpak, S. (2021). Global gender gap in unpaid care: why domestic work still remains a woman’s burden. FREE Network Policy Brief.
  • Perrotta Berlin, M., Bonnier, M., Olofsgård, A. (2024). Foreign Aid and Female Empowerment. The Journal of Development Studies, 60:5, 662-684, DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2023.2284665
  • Perrotta Berlin, M., Olofsgård, A., Smitt Meyer, C. (2023). Does Foreign Aid Foster Female Empowerment?. FREE Network Policy Brief
  • Campa, P. (2024). What Is the Evidence on the Swedish “Paternity Leave” Policy?. FREE Network Policy Brief
  • Duflo, E. (2012). Women empowerment and economic development. Journal of Economic Literature, 50(4), 1051–1079. doi:10.1257/jel.50.4.1051.
  • Meinzen-Dick, R., Kovarik, C., Quisumbing A., R. (2014). Gender and sustainability. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 39: 29-55.
  • Okunogbe, O., Pouliquen, V. (2022). Technology, taxation, and corruption: evidence from the introduction of electronic tax filing. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 14.1: 341-372.

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

Widowhood in Poland: Reforming the Financial Support System

Posted on April 22, 2024 | Policy Brief

Image representing a woman and a young girl emphasizing the bond between the mother and child representing financial support system.

Drawing on a recent Policy Paper, we analyse the degree to which the current system of support in widowhood in Poland limits the extent of poverty among this large and growing group of the population. The analysis is set in the context of a proposed reform discussed recently in the Polish Parliament. We present the budgetary and distributional consequences of this proposal and offer an alternative scenario that limits the overall cost of the policy and directs additional resources to low-income households.

Introduction

Losing a partner usually comes with consequences, both for mental health and psychological well-being (Adena et al., 2023; Blanner Kristiansen et al., 2019; Lee et al., 2001; Steptoe et al., 2013), and for material welfare. Economic deprivation may be particularly pronounced in cases of high-income differentials between spouses and in situations when the primary earner – often the man – dies first. Many countries have instituted survivors’ pensions, whereby the surviving spouse continues to receive some of the income of her/his deceased partner alongside other incomes. The systems of support differ substantially between countries and they often combine social security benefits and welfare support for those with lowest incomes.

In this policy brief, we summarise the results from a recent paper (Myck et al., 2024) and discuss the material situation of widows versus married couples in Poland. We show the degree to which the ‘survivors’ pension’, i.e. the current system of support in widowhood, limits the extent of poverty among widows and compare it to a proposed reform discussed lately in the Polish Parliament, the so-called ‘widows’ pension’. In light of the examined consequences from this proposal, we relate it to an alternative scenario, which – as we demonstrate – brings very similar benefits to low-income widows, but, at the same time, substantially reduces the cost of the policy.

Reforming the System of Support in Widowhood

Our analysis draws on a sample of married couples aged 65 and older from the Polish Household Budget Survey – a group representing a large part of the Polish population (almost 1,7 million couples). Each of these couples is assigned to an income decile, depending on the level of their disposable income. Incomes of 9.5 percent of the sample locate them in the bottom decile, i.e. the poorest 10 percent of the population, while 4.4 percent of these older couples have incomes high enough to place them in the top income group – the richest 10 percent of the population.

Next, in order to examine the effectiveness of the different systems of support, we conduct the following exercise: the incomes of these households are re-calculated assuming the husbands have passed away. This simulates the incomes of the sampled women in hypothetical scenarios of widowhood. The incomes are calculated under four different systems of support as summarized in Table 1.

Table 1. Modelled support scenarios.

Using these re-calculated household incomes, we can identify the relative position in the income distribution in the widowhood scenario as well as the poverty risk among widows under different support systems.

The change in the relative position in the income distribution following widowhood under the four support systems is presented in Figure 1. The starting point (the left-hand side of each chart) are the income groups of households with married couples aged 65+, i.e. before the simulated widowhood. The transition to the income deciles on the right-hand side of each chart is the result of a change in equivalised (i.e. adjusted for household composition) disposable income in the widowhood simulation, under different support scenarios (I – IV).

Figure 1. Change in income decile among women aged 65+, following a hypothetical death of their husbands.

Source: Own calculations based on HBS 2021 using SIMPL model; graphs were created using: https://flourish.studio/

Figure 1a shows that, without any additional support, the financial situation of older women would significantly deteriorate in the event of the death of their spouses (Figure 1a). The share of women with incomes in the lowest two deciles would be as high as 54.7 percent (compared to 17.5 percent of married couples). The current survivor’s pension seems to protect a large proportion of women from experiencing large reductions in their income (Figure 1b), although the proportion of those who find themselves in the lowest two income decile groups more than doubles relative to married couples (to 38.3 percent). The widow’s pension (Figure 1c) offers much greater support and a very large share of new widows remain in the same decile or even move to a higher income group following the hypothetical death of their spouses. For example, with the widows’ pension, 8.0 percent of the widows would be in the 9th income decile group and 5.3 percent in the 10th group, while in comparison 7.0 and 4.4 percent of married couples found themselves in these groups, respectively. The proposed alternative system (Figure 1d) raises widows’ incomes compared to the current survivor’s pension system, but it is less generous than the system with the widow’s pension. At the same time 4.6 percent and 3.4 percent of widows would be found in the 9th and 10th deciles, respectively.

Importantly, the alternative support system is almost as effective in reducing the poverty risk among widows as the widow’s pension. In the latter case the share of at-risk-of poverty drops from 35.3 percent (with no support) and 20.7 percent (under the current system) to 11,0 percent, while under the alternative system, it drops to 11.8 percent. Because the alternative system limits additional support to households with higher incomes, this reduction in at-risk-of poverty would be achieved at a much lower cost to the public budget. We estimate that while the current reform proposal would result in annual cost of 24.1 bn PLN (5.6 bn EUR), the alternative design would cost only 10.5 bn PLN (2.5 bn EUR).

The distributional implications of the two reforms are presented in Figure 2 which shows the average gains in the incomes of ‘widowed’ households between the reformed versions of support and the current system with the survivor’s pension. The gains are presented by income decile of the married households. We see that the alternative system significantly limits the gains among households in the upper half of the income distribution.

Figure 2. Average gains from an implementation of the widow’s pension and the alternative system, by income decile groups.

Source: Own calculations based on HBS 2021 using the SIMPL model. Notes: Change in the disposable income with respect to the current system with survivor’s pension. 1PLN~0.23EUR.

Conclusions

While subjective evaluations of the material conditions of older persons living alone in Poland have shown significant improvements, income poverty within this groups has increased since 2015. This suggests that the incomes of older individuals have not sufficiently kept up with the dynamics of earnings of and social transfers to other social groups in Poland. As shown in our simulations, the current widowhood support system substantially limits the risk of poverty following the death of one’s partner. However, while the current survivor’s pension decreases the poverty risk from 35.3 percent in a system without any support to 20.7 percent, the risk of poverty among widows is still significantly higher compared to the risk faced by married couples.

The simulations presented in this Policy Brief examine the implications of a support system reform; the widow’s pension which is currently being discussed in the Polish Parliament, as well as an alternative proposal putting more emphasis on poorer households. The impactof these two reforms on the at-risk-of poverty levels among widowed individuals would be very similar, but the design of the alternative system would come at a significantly lower cost to the public budget. The total annual cost to the public sector of the widow’s pensions would amount to 24.1 bn PLN (5.6 bn EUR) while our proposed alternative would cost only 10.5 bn PLN (2.5 bn EUR) per year.

An effective policy design allowing the government to achieve its objectives at the lowest possible costs should always be among the government’s main priorities. This is especially important in times of high budget pressure – due to demographic changes or other risks – as is currently the case in Poland.

References

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

Reforming Financial Support in Widowhood: The Current System in Poland and Potential Reforms

Posted on April 22, 2024 | FROGEE PROJECT, Policy Papers

Woman in a blue jacket sitting on a bench with a cat in autumn, overlooking a city landscape representing Widowhood support Poland

In this policy paper, we discuss the material conditions of widows and widowers compared to married couples in Poland, and analyse the degree to which the current support system to those in widowhood in Poland limits the extent of poverty among this large and growing share of the population. The analysis is set in the context of a proposed reform recently discussed in the Polish Parliament. We present the budgetary and distributional consequences of this proposal and offer an alternative scenario which limits the overall cost of the policy and directs  additional resources to low income households.

Introduction

According to the National Census in 2021 there were about 2.2 million widows and 450 000 widowers in Poland. In the following year over 123 000 women and about 47 000 men became widowed. Apart from the severe consequences for mental health and psychological well-being, losing a partner typically has implications also for material wellbeing, in particular in cases of high income differentials between the spouses and in situations when the primary earner – often the man – dies first. Material conditions of the surviving spouse in widowhood depend on the one hand on the couple’s accumulated resources, and, on the other hand, on the available  support system. Many countries have instituted so-called survivors’ pensions, whereby the surviving spouse continues to receive some of the income of her/his deceased partner alongside other incomes. The systems of support differ substantially between countries and they often combine social security benefits and welfare support for those with the lowest incomes.

In this policy paper we discuss the material situation of widows and widowers versus married couples in Poland and analyse the degree to which the current Polish support system for  people in widowhood limits the extent of poverty within this group. We compare the current system of survivors’ pension with a proposed reform discussed lately in the Polish Parliament;the introduction of a ‘widow’s pension’. We present the budgetary and distributional consequences of the announced scheme and offer an alternative scenario which limits the overall cost of the policy and focuses additional resources on low income households. Our results show significant income gains for  widows/widowers from the implementation of the recently proposed widow’s pension. The policy however, would come at a substantial cost to the public purse, and the most significant benefits would be accrued by surviving partners at the top of the income distribution. Our proposed alternative scenario is better targeted at poorer households and achieves the objective of limiting poverty in widowhood at a substantially lower cost.

The Material Situation of Widows and Widowers in Poland

Numerous research papers show a strong impact of losing a spouse on mental health and overall well-being (Blanner Kristiansen et al., 2019; Lee et al., 2001; Ory & Huijts, 2015; Sasson & Umberson, 2014; Schaan, 2013; Siflinger, 2017; Steptoe et al., 2013). Adena et al. (2023) use a comprehensive dataset on older women observed a number of years before and after the death of their spouses. The study finds a sharp deterioration in mental health among widows after their partner’s death, displayed as a higher likelihood of crying (Figure 1a) or an increased probability of depression (Figure 1b). The authors provide evidence that, in comparison to similar women who remained partnered, widows suffer from poorer mental health and experience worsened quality of life for several years after their partners’ death.

Figure 1. Women’s mental health before and after their partners’ death.

Charts comparing the share of widowed women who cried and those at risk of depression over five years representing policy brief that covers widowhood support Poland.

Source: Adena et al. (2023). Notes: The control group consisted of women from statistical “twin” marriages with an identical distribution of selected characteristics; Figure 1b) Risk of depression defined as 4 or more depression symptoms according to the EURO-D scale. For methodological details see Adena et al. (2023).

While the impact of spouse’s death on widows mental health is largely undisputed, the impacts on their material situation are ambiguous (Ahn, 2005; Bíró, 2013; Bound et al., 1991; Corden et al., 2008; Hungerford, 2001).The differences across countries in the material situation of widowed versus partnered elderly people undoubtedly reflect countries’ various social security systems for those in widowhood. At the same time, these differences may also stem from variations in other factors that widows and widwers can rely on such as the prevalence of property ownership or accumulation of wealth and savings. It should be noted though, that in contrast to the immediate effects of spouse’s death on mental health, the consequences for widows’ and widowers’ material situation may unfold over a number of years. This is reflected in the results from poverty surveys which often point to the poorer material standing of widows and widowers (Panek et al., 2015; Petelczyc & Roicka, 2016; Timoszuk, 2017, 2021).

Similar conclusions can be derived from subjective evaluations of households’ material situation reflected in the Central Statistical Office’s Polish Household Budget Survey (HBS). In Figure 2a we present the percentage of people aged 65 and over who declared a ‘bad’ or ‘rather bad’ material situation of their household between 2010 and 2021, split between widows, widowers and married couples.. Throughout the analysed period, the share of both widows and widowers reporting a rather bad material situation was significantly higher than for married couples aged 65+. While in 2010 30 percent of widows and 20 percent of widowers reported a rather bad material standing, this share amounted to just above 10 percent among married couples. In all social groups the ratio of those in a rather bad material situation declined significantly over the analysed decade. A particularly significant drop was observed among widows; in 2021 the share of widows declaring a rather bad material situation declined to the level observed for married couples eleven years earlier.

Data capturing the risk of poverty from Eurostat, based on the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions Survey (EU-SILC), also display significantly worse material conditions of older individuals living alone compared to those living with another adult (Figure 2b). While this data does not explicitly allow us to divide the sample based on marital status, it is highly likely (and assumed hereafter) that the majority of single-person households 65+ cover widows or widowers, while two-person households aged 65+represent married couples. As compared to Figure 2a, the dynamics of the poverty levels among people aged 65+ in Figure 2b differ from the dynamics of the assessment of the overall material situation. Among two-person households, the risk of poverty in Poland declined between 2010 and 2013, and then remained relatively stable at about 15 percent until 2020. Among one-person households the poverty rate also declined during the first five years (from 33 percent in 2010 to 25 percent in 2015), however, it then increased to 37 percent in 2020. Consequently, the gap in poverty risk between two-person and one-person households increased substantially, from 8 percentage points in 2010 to 22 percentage points in 2020.

Figure 2. Material situation among households with individuals aged 65 and over.

Charts comparing material situation and poverty risk among widows, widowers, married couples, and households in Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, and Italy representing policy brief that covers widowhood support Poland.

Source: Own compilation based on: a) HBS; b) Eurostat. Notes: a) Widows and widowers aged 65+ living in one-person households; married couples living in two-person households with at least one spouse aged 65+; b) Eurostat data does not allow for division by gender or marital status. In two-person households both persons are adults, at least one is aged 65+. At-risk-of-poverty rate is defined as 60 percent of the median equivalized income of the entire population.

When analyzing poverty risk information, it should be noted that this indicator is based on income thresholds calculated separately for each year, accounting for the whole population. Poverty risk threshold may therefore increase as a result of income boosts among other groups and in consequence raise the risk of poverty of older people even if their real incomes are stable or grow. Thus the substantial increase in o the poverty risk share among Polish individuals 65+ and living alone after 2015, is related to the sharp rise in income of families with children and wage dynamics, which, in turn raised the poverty threshold considered in the analysis. Based on Figure 2b it is also worth noting that in comparison to Poland the risk of poverty among single-person households 65+ grew even faster in the Czech Republic (though the situation among two-person households 65+ was stable there). The  relative position of these households deteriorated also in Germany (the share at risk of poverty increased from 24 percent in 2010 to 31 percent in 2020). It is therefore clear that even though absolute material conditions may have improved among widowed households in Poland over the last decade, their relative position in the income distribution – as in many other countries – places them at a significantly greater risk of poverty compared to partnered older individuals. Questions regarding the level of state support directed towards widowed older individuals are therefore highly relevant for government policy.

Figure 3. The living situation of widows, widowers and married couples aged 65 and over, in Poland.

Charts showing share of owner occupiers and dwelling size in square meters per person among widows, widowers, and married couples in Poland representing policy brief that covers widowhood support Poland.

Source: Own compilation based on HBS. Notes: Widows and widowers aged 65+ living in one-person households. Married couples in two-person households with at least one spouse aged 65+.

To better understand the broader context of material conditions in widowhood, and to try to address the discrepancy between the trends in subjective evaluation and widows’ relative position in the income distribution, it is also worth examining other aspects of material well-being. In Figure 3a we present some statistics on property ownership. As we can see, the majority of individuals aged 65+ in Poland, both widowed and married, owned the house or flat they lived in. For example, in 2010 62 percent of all widows and 68 percent of all widowers owned their dwelling, and these shares increased to 72 percent for both groups by 2021. Moreover, among older owner occupiers, the size of the house or apartment per person living in it was on average two times larger for widows and widowers (50 m2) as compared to married couples (25 m2), as depicted in Figure 3b. The high share of widows and widowers owning housing assets may therefore be one of the most important explanations to the discrepancies between the dynamics of income poverty and the declarations about the overall material situation observed in recent years. Although the risk of relative income poverty among widows and widowers have increased since 2016 (after a period of decline between 2010 and 2015), widowhood in Poland is not unequivocally associated with poor material conditions. While some widowed individuals clearly face a challenging material situation, for many the current system of survivor’s pension seems to offer adequate protection against the risk of a significant financial deterioration following the loss of a spouse. This suggests that any additional support through a new social security instrument should be directed principally to a relatively narrow group of widows and widowers in order to help particularly those in a difficult financial situation.

Survivor’s Pension, Widow’s Pension and an Alternative Solution

In this part of the paper we present simulations of changes in the level of household income and the relative position in the income distribution among widows under different scenarios of support through the social security system. In the first step we use the 2021 HBS data (uprated to 2023 income levels) to calculate disposable incomes of the entire sample of nearly 31 000 households under the 2024 Polish tax-benefit system using the SIMPL tax and benefit microsimulation model (henceforth the ‘baseline’ system; more details on the SIMPL model: Myck et al., 2015, 2023a; Myck & Najsztub, 2014). Based on the baseline system, we divide the households into ten income decile groups according to their disposable income (equivalised, i.e. adjusted for household composition). In the second step we focus on the sample of 4188 married couples aged 65 and over, representing 1.7 million Polish households (almost 13 percent of the total population). 65 percent of these couples lived in two-person households and the remaining 35 percent cohabited also with other people. In the baseline system, the incomes received by these households placed 9.5 percent of them in the lowest (1st) income decile group and 4.4 percent in the highest (10th) group (see Table 1).

Table 1. Relative position of households with married couples aged 65+ in the income distribution.

Source: Own calculations based on HBS 2021 using the SIMPL model. Notes: The baseline system for calculating the equivalised income thresholds was the January 2024 system; the thresholds for the income decile groups were calculated on the basis of a full sample of households.

Figure 4a shows a comparison of men’s and women’s gross retirement pensions in our sample of married couples 65+ in the baseline system. Every dot corresponds to one married couple and a combination of the spouses’ pensions. The greater concentration of combinations of these values above the 45-degree line indicates that in most marriages , the husbands’ retirement pensions are higher than the wives’. The differences are also apparent in Figure 4b, which presents the percentages of individuals receiving a pension benefit within the given value range of the pension. The share of women are greater than the share of men at lower benefit values (below 3000 PLN gross per month), and the opposite is true for higher pension amounts. Overall, for 65 percent of all couples, the husband received a higher retirement pension than his wife. There are also older people who did not receive retirement benefits – either because they continued to work or because they were not entitled to a retirement pension (this is the case for 9 percent of husbands and 10 percent of wives), as illustrated by the first column in Figure 4b. It is worth noting that for 2 percent of the couples only the husband received a retirement pension (the wife had never worked and was not eligible for retirement pension or she still worked). In the current Polish system of support for surviving spouses, the amount of own and spouse’s retirement pension is crucial for the choice of the benefit one makes when a spouse dies. A widowed person can choose to continue receiving their own full retirement pension or to receive a survivor’s pension, which is equivalent to 85 percent of the pension of the deceased spouse. Given the differences between men’s and women’s pensions, many women choose the latter option, either because their own retirement pension is significantly lower than the survivor’s pension or because they are not entitled to their own retirement pension.

Figure 4. Retirement pension amounts received by husbands and wives aged 65+

Comparison of men's and women's retirement pension gross amounts and percentage of individuals receiving retirement pensions in value brackets representing policy brief that covers widowhood support Poland.

Source: Own compilation based on HBS 2021. Notes: Both spouses aged 65 and over; gross monthly retirement pensions; in less than 1 percent of the marriages at least one spouse received a retirement pension higher than 10000 PLN (not included in the Figure). 1PLN~0.23EUR.

We treat the sample of married couples aged 65 years or more as a reference sample in our analysis of the consequences from the implementation of various support schemes within the social security system, in the case of widowhood. The calculations presented below reflect the financial situation of the analyzed sample after the hypothetical death of husbands. We focus on widows, as they represent the vast majority of widowed individuals (due to, e.g., longer life expectancy of women and age differences between spouses). We simulate four support scenarios:

I) a system with no support for widowed individuals – this would be the situation without the current survivor’s pension, in which widows would need to rely fully on their own social security incomes (pensions);

II) the current system of survivor’s pension: in which the widow must choose between 100 percent of her own pension or the survivor’s pension (85 percent of her deceased husband’s gross pension)

III) a system with the widow’s pension (currently debated in the Polish Parliament): the widow must choose between: a) 100 percent of her own pension + 50 percent of the survivor’s pension (42,5 percent of the deceased husband’s gross pension), b) 50 percent of her own pension + 100 percent of the survivor’s pension (85 percent of her dead husband’s gross pension);

IV) an alternative system in which the widow chooses between: a) 100 percent of her own pension + 50 percent of a minimum pension if her husband received at least minimum retirement pension (50 percent of the husband’s pension if it was lower than the minimum pension), b) 100 percent of the survivor’s pension (85 percent of the husband’s pension) increased to the minimum pension if the husband received at least minimum retirement pension.

While the simulations are based on a hypothetical death of a husband, they provide a realistic picture of the financial situation of households in which women face widowhood. It is also important to note that the simulations of the financial conditions of ‘widowed’ households take into account other potential forms of public social support such as housing benefits and social assistance for low-income households. The results thus include the most relevant forms of financial support individuals might receive from the Polish government.

Figure 5 shows the results of the four aforementioned scenarios in the form of flow charts between income decile groups. The starting point (the left-hand side of each chart) are the income groups of households with married couples aged 65+, i.e. before the simulated widowhood. The transition to the income deciles on the right hand side of each chart is the result of a change in equivalised disposable income in the widowhood simulation, under different support scenarios (I – IV). Thus, on the right hand side we observe the income groups in which the women would find themselves after the death of their husbands, conditional on the assumed system of support: without the survivor’s pension (system I, Figure 5a), with the survivor’s pension (system II, figure 5b), with the widow’s pension (system III, Figure 5c) and under the alternative system (system IV, Figure 5d).

Figure 5a shows that without any additional support the financial situation of older women would significantly deteriorate in the event of the death of their spouses (Figure 5a). The share of women whose income would place them in the lowest two decile groups would be as high as 54.7 percent (compared to 17.5 percent of married couples), and 82.8 percent of the widows would be in the bottom half of the income distribution (compared to 57 percent of married couples). The current survivor’s pension seems to protect a large proportion of women (Figure 5b), although the proportion of those who find themselves in the lowest two income decile groups still more than doubles relative to the situation of married couples, to 38.3 percent. Further, 74.9 percent of the widows would find themselves in the bottom half of the distribution. The proposed widow’s pension (Figure 5c) offers much greater support with a very high share of new widows remaining in the same decile or even moving to a higher income group. For example, with the widows’ pension 8.0 percent of women would be in the 9th income decile group and 5.3 percent in the 10th group, while, in comparison, 7.0 percent and 4.4 percent of married couples found themselves in these groups, respectively. 

Figure 5. Change in income decile among women aged 65+, following a hypothetical death of their husbands.

Comparison of income decile groups under different widowhood pension systems in Poland, highlighting income shifts across four scenarios and representing policy brief that covers widowhood support Poland.

Source: Own calculations based on HBS 2021 using SIMPL model; graphs were created using: https://flourish.studio/

The proposed alternative system (Figure 5d) raises widows’ incomes compared to the current survivor’s pension system, but it is less generous than the system with the widow’s pension. Importantly however, it increases the incomes of widows in the lower income groups, which means that, compared to the current system, the number of women dropping to the poorest income groups following their husband’s death would be significantly reduced (24.0 percent would be in the lowest two deciles). At the same time 4.6 percent and 3.4 percent of the widows would be placed in the 9th and the 10th decile groups, respectively.

Table 2 shows the change in the poverty risk among the women in five considered scenarios, i.e. before they become widowed and after the hypothetical death of their husband under the considered four systems of support. 10.5 percent of married couples aged 65+ had equivalised disposable incomes which placed them below the poverty line calculated in the baseline system. After the simulated death of a husband, in a scenario without the survivor’s pension, the poverty rate among widows would increase to 35.3 percent, while the current survivor’s pension limits it to 20.7 percent. Poverty would be further reduced in the two systems with considered reforms: to 11.0 percent the widow’s pension system and to 11.8 percent in the alternative system.

Table 2. At-risk-of-poverty rates in the analysed scenarios.

Source: Own calculations based on HBS 2021 using the SIMPL model. Notes: The at-risk-of-poverty threshold is set at 60 percent of median equivalised disposable income in the baseline system.

Total Costs of the Considered Schemes

As mentioned above, the presented simulations take into account the conditions of current older couples. Therefore, we cannot directly calculate the consequences of the two suggested systems (the widow’s pension system and the alternative system) for those who are already widowed. This applies in particular to the present-day cost from the suggested changes to the widowhood support schemes to the public budget . In order to accurately estimate the changes in already widowed people’s incomes, we would have to have the information on the values of widow’s pensions and of pensions that their deceased spouses received when they were still alive, information that is not available in the HBS.

Nevertheless, our simulations allow us to compare the aggregated costs of support for women in the simulated widowhood scenarios under different support systems. Such calculations suggest that an implementation of the widow’s pension would increase the gross benefits received by widows by 34.2 percent compared to the current survivor’s pension system., while the alternative system would raise them by 14.7 percent. Applying these growth rates to the social security benefits currently received by widows and widowers (from the HBS data) implies additional annual costs of 24.1 bn PLN (5.6 bn EUR) under the widow’s pension system, and 10.5 bn PLN (2.5 bn EUR) under the alternative system.

Who Gains the Most?

From a distributional perspective, the simulated outcomes of the two suggested systems of support in widowhood can be compared to the baseline situation. In Figure 6 we show average changes in widowed women’s disposable income resulting from a change from the current system with survivor’s pension to the system with widow’s pension, and to our alternative design. Gross monthly survivor’s pensions of the widows are divided into seven groups, starting from 0-500 PLN up to 5501 PLN and more. One can clearly see that women who would, on average, gain the most from the implementation of the widow’s pension are those who already have a relatively high survivor’s pension in the current system. The average rise in disposable income (net) among those with gross monthly pensions between 4501 and 5500 PLN would be 1200 PLN, if widow’s pension was implemented. In contrast, women who receive 501-1500 PLN (gross) per month under the current survivor’s pension, would see a net monthly gain of about 350 PLN. These women would benefit slightly more under the alternative system – on average about 390 PLN, while much lower increases (on average about 220 PLN per month) would be faced by women in the 4501-5500 PLN group. Women in the last group, with gross monthly pensions of 5501 PLN and more under the current survivor’s pension system, would additionally gain even less in the alternative system – on average about 170 PLN. Thus overall, greater gains would accrue to those with lower current benefits in the alternative system.

Figure 6. Average increase in disposable income among widows by current survivor’s pensions’ value group.

Source: Own calculations based on HBS 2021 using the SIMPL model. Notes: Change in the disposable income with respect to the current system with survivor’s pension. 1PLN~0.23EUR.

In Figure 7 we categorise the sample of widows in terms of the range of their gains resulting from the two analysed reforms. The gains are calculated as changes in disposable income between the current system of support and the modelled reforms. We see that 20 percent of widows would gain over 1000 PLN extra per month as a result of the widow’s pension’s reform, while a further 24 percent would gain between 801 to 1000 PLN and 28 percent could expect to see a gain of between 601-800 PLN per month. The reform would leave the incomes of only about 12 percent of the widows unchanged – most of them are women who are not eligible for their own retirement pensions. In the alternative system the incomes of 34 percent of the analysed widows would remain unaffected. This group of women includes not only those without their own retirement pensions, but also those whose husbands received much higher pensions than themselves. This means that even if a widow’s retirement pension were to increase by 50 percent of the minimum pension, it would still be lower than 85 percent of her spouse’s retirement pension (see Figure 4a). In the alternative system about 17 percent of women in the sample would increase their disposable income by less than 400 PLN per month. For 28 percent, the increase would be in the range of between 400 and 600 PLN per month. While 21 percent would receive increased benefits under the alternative system, none of the hypothetical widows would receive more than 800 PLN per month.

Figure 7. Share of women by ranges of increases from the widow’s pension and the alternative scenario.

Source: Own calculations based on HBS 2021 using the SIMPL model. Notes: Change in the disposable income with respect to the current system with survivor’s pension. 1PLN~0.23EUR.

Figure 8 presents the average effect of the modelled reforms on disposable incomes of women in the sample, divided by income decile groups. Households were assigned to one of ten income groups based on their equivalised disposable income in the baseline system (i.e. according to the joint income of the couples). Figure 8 reflects the distribution of gains from the implementation of the widow’s pension or the alternative system. In the first case, the highest gains would be concentrated among the richest households. While women in the 8th and 9th income decile would, on average, receive an increase in their disposable income of about 1100 PLN per month, those in the 2nd decile group would, on average, receive only an additional 470 PLN per month. The distribution under the alternative system is far more concentrated on low income households. The highest average additional gain of about 420 PLN per month would be granted to widows from the 3rd income decile group, and benefits to women in the upper half of the income distribution would be significantly lower. Women in the top decile would gain, on average, only about 280 PLN per month. In many of the poorest households in our sample of couples, neither partner qualifies for a retirement pension. As a result, widows in this group would experience significantly lower average gains under both analyzed systems compared to those in higher income brackets.

Figure 8. Average gains due to the implementation of widow’s pension and the alternative system, by income decile group.

Source: Own calculations based on HBS 2021 using the SIMPL model. Notes: Change in the disposable income with respect to the current system with survivor’s pension. 1PLN~0.23EUR. Assignment to the income group was done prior to the hypothetical death of husbands.

Conclusion

In 2021 only 10 percent of the Polish widows and 8 percent of the Polish widowers aged 65 and more evaluated their material situation as rather bad, percentages that had dropped significantly since 2010. According to the HBS the majority of widowed individuals in Poland are also owners of the dwelling they live in. At the same time, income poverty among older persons living alone has increased in Poland since 2015, suggesting that despite the subjective evaluations, incomes of these older individuals – many of whom are widowed – have not managed to keep up with the dynamics of earnings and social transfers aimed at other demographic groups in Poland. As showed in our simulations, the current widowhood support system in Poland substantially limits the risk of poverty following the death of one’s partner. However, while the current survivor’s pension decreases the poverty risk from 35.3 percent (in a system without any support) to 20.7 percent, the risk of poverty among widows is still significantly higher compared to the risk faced by married couples.

The simulations analysed in this Policy Paper has covered the proposal of a support system reform, thewidow’s pension, which is currently discussed in the Polish Parliament. The simulations also covered an alternative alternative proposal putting more emphasis on poorer households. Both of these reforms would provide additional support to individuals affected by widowhood. In the case of the widow’s pension the average value of social security benefits would increase by 34.2 percent, whereas the alternative scenario would increase these benefits by 14.7 percent. If the pensions of current widows and widowers were to be increase by these proportions, the total annual cost to the public sector would amount to 24.1 bn PLN (5.6 bn EUR) and 10.5 bn PLN (2.5 bn EUR) per year, respectively. As shown above, the impact of these two reforms on poverty levels among widowed individuals would be very similar – the reforms would reduce it to 11.0 and 11.8 percent, respectively. The substantial difference in the total cost of these two alternatives is mainly due to the fact that the bulk of the additional benefits from the implementation of the widow’s pension is concentrated among high-income widows and widowers, while the highest profits in the modelled alternative system are targeted at households at the bottom of the income distribution.

If the aim of the potential legislative changes is to support widows and widowers in a difficult material situation and to reduce the extent of poverty, the widow’s pension currently discussed in the Polish Parliament seems to be far from ideal. As demonstrated in this Policy Paper, additional support addressed to widows and widowers in Poland can be designed in a way that substantially reduces the risk of poverty, with limitations on benefit increases to those already in a favourable financial situation. Our proposed alternative system would generate higher incomes for the poorest widows and widowers similar to the widow’s pension, while its cost to the public budget would be less than half of the cost of the discussed widow’s pension reform.

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