The Situation of Women in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Situation of Women in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Gender Discrimination and Gender Based Sexual Violence

In Bosnia and Herzegovina women experience gender inequality and violence, with cultural norms being deeply rooted in their position and capabilities. Discrimination is detected in political representation, in the labor market with unemployment, in education, and health care. B&H has implemented a legislative framework to tackle gender-based violence, human trafficking and discrimination. However, the implementation of such legislative framework is irregular, leaving many women exposed and vulnerable to domestic violence, discrimination in the workplace, and underrepresentation in politics. Despite having signed the Istanbul Convention on violence against women, the state’s response to gender violence is rather weak. Women are often not informed of their rights and available support by police officers, and offenders are just given a warning. Official and systematic data on gender-based violence in the country is not available.

Women’s Employment and Education

Bosnia and Herzegovina has one of Europe’s highest unemployment rates – 27.5% in 2014, with youth unemployment at 58% in 2016, and a sizeable grey economy (estimates range at about 30-50% of GDP).Women make up 45% of the unemployed population, but are 62% of the ‘inactive labour force,’ many of whom are housewives or unpaid family workers. Women are also 68% of those registered as employed in family business without a regular wage. Many women are not encouraged to join the labour market at all, and these women are not counted in the unemployment rate. The 2016 Bosnian Labour Force Survey also shows that women do 67.9% of the unpaid household work, including agricultural labour, which has become more important in the absence of industry. The gender wage gap (and the unemployment rate) would undoubtedly be much higher if ‘inactive’ and unpaid women who work in the home and in agriculture were factored into it.

There is evident polarization between Bosnian women that tracks closely with urban and rural divides in terms of income inequality. On the one hand, a much larger percentage of women are illiterate (5%) or have only completely primary school. While men and women have equal rates of university and postgraduate degrees, twice as many women have only a primary school education or less. Despite this, more women currently attend university than men, and their rates of enrollment are growing faster than their male counterparts. Women with higher rates of education also have higher labor force participation rates. This suggests that although, returns on education are high, rural women are being left behind. Women continue to outnumber men in the study of education, arts and humanities, social sciences, law, and medicine, while traditionally ‘masculine’ areas of study like engineering and hard sciences remain dominated by men.

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