How are women doing on the Bulgarian labor market?

In the week when we celebrate International Women's Day, we’re taking a look at the labor market in Bulgaria and the participation of women in it. Recently, the Institute for Market Economics (IME) conducted a survey in the country, which revealed that the number of working women with children is much smaller compared to employed women without a child.

What is the reason for this trend? And why is it still more difficult for women to integrate into the labor market? We talked about this with Zornitsa Slavova, an economist at the Institute for Market Economics (IME). From our conversation with her, it became clear that nowadays one of the reasons why a large percentage of mothers remain outside the labor market is the increasing lack of available places in kindergartens. Accordingly, this makes it impossible for parents to take care of their children while also keeping a job.

In order to deal with this problem, which is among the most pressing in the Bulgarian capital – Sofia - in 2021, upon the idea of the then Acting Minister of Finance Assen Vassilev, an ordinance was adopted, according to which the parents of children who couldn’t find a spot in one of the city’s municipal kindergartens, were entitled to receive monetary compensation.

From a purely economic point of view, the fact that this problem of the parents of 1,500 children has been solved in Sofia is good news, but it does not solve the problem of the difficult integration of women in the labor market", commented Slavova.

Compensations

Since the introduction of said compensations, they have been increased many times. The maximum monthly amount of the compensation, determined by order of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science, was BGN 291 (around 145 euros) in 2021. The total funds paid to parents whose children were not admitted to public kindergartens was 620,000 euros in that year, as reported by the Ministry of Education (kindergartens fall under its jurisdiction) for Economic.bg.

In 2022, the amount of compensation was increased three times, reaching BGN 413 (around 206 euros). For the whole year, the funds paid out totalled more than 1.6 million euros.

In 2023, there was a one-time increase in the amount of compensation, which came into effect on 1 August, when the aid was increased to BGN 457 (228 euros). In total, the parents of these children received more than 2.55 million euros.

This year, the determined amount of the compensation is BGN 510 (around 255 euros).

Calculations made by Economic.bg show that in two and a half years (since the regulation came into effect) the Bulgarian state has given BGN 9,723,355 (or around 4,861,670 euros) to compensate parents in Sofia whose children could not find a place in a public kindergarten.

This increase only partially offsets the cost to parents. We know that prices in private gardens are twice as high as the BGN 510 compensation," says Slavova.

She specifies that, despite all this, the situation in Bulgaria regarding the employment of women has not changed much in recent years.

According to her, the key to solving the problem of integrating women into the local labor market is...

...education

There is a very clear link between participation in the labor market and education"

Slavova backs up her claim with various IME studies, which show that the number of working women with a university degree is much higher than those with a high school education or less – and this gap is larger if compared to the same indicator for men.

That is, the number of men who have a high school education or less is much greater than that of women with this level of education.

We have entire regions - Dobrich, Targovishte, Shumen - where a very small part of women of legal working age actually work," says Slavova

Pay gap

Women's salaries in Bulgaria continue to lag behind those of men. In 2022, women's average hourly earnings will be 12.6% lower than men's, according to the latest gender pay gap data from the National Statistical Institute (NSI).

The biggest difference in pay is in the following sectors: Financial and insurance activities - 30.2%, Human health care and social work - 24%, Manufacturing industry - 22.8% and Culture, sports and entertainment - 20.8%.

Women earn more than men in these sectors: Administrative and support activities, where the difference is 20%, Construction - 16%, Real estate operations - 10%.

Still, the gender pay gap is actually much wider in other countries.

"Bulgaria occupies one of the first places in Europe in terms of the number of employed women in the ICT sector. This sector is relatively young for our country, and this means that women participate more actively in the new industries," says the economist.

According to her, technological progress also plays a decisive role. Some professions are no longer exclusively male. Stereotypes in this direction were also broken by the Women4Metals initiative of the Aurubis mining company.

We focus on women having an equal chance and representation in our business, [which is in a field of work] that may not seem so attractive at first for the fair sex. We are about to exchange experiences and ideas, and build a road map," said Tim Kurth, executive director of Aurubis Bulgaria, recently.

These days when everything is just a click away - from education to shopping to work – our destiny is in our own hands. And much of the stereotypes about male and female roles – both in the family and in the workplace – have long since been shattered.

Translated by Tzvetozar Vincent Iolov