The Concept of the Research

What are the new challenges women face today, how they cope with them, what they need in order to improve their situation and to realize successfully themselves at work, in pubic life, in the family. These are some of the major questions, this project tried to find answers of. It was conducted in Bulgaria, Kazahstan and Hungary. The goal of the project is to study the issues, expectations and new roles of women at work and in the family regarding the dynamics of the global transformations in all spheres of public life. It also aims to assist women’s access to the globalizing labour market, as well as to contribute to improvement women’s opportunities for a free choice and decent work and family realization. For this purpose, a team of experts and highly qualified researchers conducted a large-scale indepth survey, applying up to the modern world standards quantitative and qualitative methods. Within the project, a lot of empirical information was collected, systematized and analyzed, the main part of which is presented in this report. The received findings could be implemented in forming of data base on women’s problems, improving the methodology for collecting statistical information by gender, as well as for designing an employment policy accounting of the specific features of men and women, which may be implemented by both government and non-government organizations. The concept of the survey was developed and specified through a series of discussions and actualizing of the main hypotheses. After a detailed analysis of theory, publications and available analyses on the topic, three main research hypotheses have been formulated. The first hypothesis is that, the processes of worldwide globalization and economic, social and cultural transformations and reforms in the country change substantially the distribution of roles between men and women, adding more and more responsibilities for women. The second hypothesis is that, as a result of the hard transition to market economy, women have more limited access to the labour market, but at the same time they are more adaptive and combinative compare to men. The third is that, in comparison with men, women are more strongly injured considering payment, employment, holding high posts, as well as distribution of household labour. Women are more likely to fall in the poverty trap than men are and all this requires the employment policies and the strategies for improving the quality of life in the country to be specified by gender. The research team implemented a complex approach to verify the hypotheses which elaboration passes through the following stages: At the first stage, the concept of the survey was defined with the participation of authorized representatives of the three countries included in the project – Bulgaria, Kazahstan and Hungary. This was made on a three-day workshop in Plovdiv in February 2001. At the second stage, a consultative council to the main research team has been formed, in which experts from the academic community, from different government and business institutions have been involved. The aim of the council was to contribute to the improving of work on the project at each phase. At the third stage, with the help of the consultative council, the research methods were defined and the organization plan of the survey was approved. The team working on the project orientated toward conducting a large-scale survey on the theme, including quantitative and qualitative world standard methods. At the forth stage, the research tools for conducting of the qualitative phase of the survey were designed and discussed – in-depth individual and group interviews, focus-groups, case-studies, contentanalyses. At the fifth stage, tools for conducting of the quantitative research were designed on the basis of findings from the previous, the qualitative phase, and from a systematization of statistical data. The sixth stage covered collecting, processing and analyses of the social information received from a national representative survey of the whole population in the country aged 18 and older. During the seventh stage of the survey, series of discussions and presentations have been organized, where the research findings were presented and popularizied. At a one-day workshop in November 2001, the main results of the survey were discussed with the consultative council and with other experts. In December, a four-day national dialogue has been organized, where a wider range of participants were invited with whom the research findings and main conclusions, as well as the political recommendations toward the government and the authorities, were discussed1 . At the beginning of March 2002, a special scientific and practical conference was organized by the Agency for social analyses (ASA) together with CITUB, where the findings of the project have been presented and discussed. The media has broadly presented the project and the received findings as well. Research methods and approaches In order to attain the main objective of the survey, the research team has orientated toward collecting quantitative and qualitative information through the following methods: • Statistical data analysis The research work started with a detailed desk research on the available statistical data on women’s status in the labour market over the period of active transformations in the country. Data from the National statistical institute have been processed and systematized considering activity rate, employment rate, unemployment rate by gender and in different dimensions (by level of education, age, family status) for the period 1993-20002 . The whole information was processied for the same period by gender and demographic indicators. • Individual and group in-depth interviews with women from different social categories On the basis of the already outlined trends, the team designed the methodology for the first (qualitative) phase of the survey. For specifying the main challenges women face, which to be measured later with quantitative methods, series of different types of qualitative surveys were conducted: - 11 in-depth interviews with experts from different institutions and with different roles in the process of transformations of society – politicians on national and regional level, representatives of government and non-government organizations, of trade-unions and employers, of academic and scientific community. - 7 focus-groups with representatives of employed and unemployed women, of young women before the start of their working career and with women before retirement, and with Romany women, as well, conducted in different settlements in the country (village, small town, big town) - Expert evaluations by specialists from the government and non-government sector, from trade unions, employers, university professors and researchers. Case study in typologically selected units from the bank sector. This type of survey was organized and conducted on the special insistence of experts from UNIFEM3 . • National representative survey After the analysis of the received data, the research team realized the next phase – qualitative survey. In order to measure the registered during the first two phases problems of women at work and in the family, a national representative survey with the following main characteristics was conducted: Sample type – two-stage cluster sample, through which 100 clusters from the whole country have been selected, where in each cluster 12 respondents have been studied. Selection of respondents – Leslie Kish’s scheme. Sample size – 1093 Bulgarian citizens from the whole country aged 18 or older. Main fieldwork method – in-depth individual interview by living place of residence Data processing – SPSS’8 for Windows. Data analysis – Cluster analysis, Factor analysis, Correspondence analysis. In the present report, the main findings of the analysis of the generalized empirical (both qualitative and quantitative) and statistical information are presented. In appendices statistical data are given, as well as explanations of the applied methodology. GLOBALIZATION AS A CHALLENGE IN FRONT OF WOMEN’S EMPLOYMENT Mostly pointed out, answering the question “what is globalization?” is the contribution of globalization to the worldwide economic development - increased economic integration between people living in different countries (1), consolidating of national economies5 (2) and on this basis – stable trade; extended political and cultural dialogue and confirmed world peace. The pessimism, concerning the opportunities globalization to improve living conditions in the long run, results from the assessment that not all countries could make use of its advantages. The estimations of economic globalization agree that it refers to active international trade, direct investments, production and world markets integration6 . The intensity of world trade as a share of exports and imports of GDP increases from 27% to 39% during the period 1987-1997. Only for the developing countries the increase is from 10% to 17%. (3) 7 . Foreign direct investment flow has grown nearly three-fold over the period 1988-1998 (from 192 billion to 610 billion U.S. dollars). The developing countries have received about one third of these investments . Together with these direct deposits an intensive international trade on capital markets was observed, including developing countries. Nowadays, the economic strength of a country depends on its position in the globalizing world. This means that if a country has been trying to reach an economic presperity and well-beeing of its citizens, it should situate itself in the international networks in a way, which would assure effective contacts of its production factors and would maximize its access to markets9 . If such networks do not exist – it is necessary their establishment to be initiated by a useful for development way. At the same time the power of the world capital has been increasing compare to that of separate countries or other actors in civil society like trade unions, for example. In this way, the so-called capital “structural power”, and particularly business finance opportunities to influence directly state politics, has been stabilized. The big capital has always aspired to such influence. Its realization has a negative effect on “economically and politicall weak” subjects, as well as when studing the wold processes. With regard to this fact, are the comments on deviding world economy into a small number of economic leadres and the majority – on developing economies working to provide the resources they need. As the term globalization itself and the social roles of women, outlining the eventual changes in women’s positions (roles) in the contemporary globalizing world also has several aspects as well. In conformity with the objectives of the present research more attention deserves the relation “globalization – opportunities of employment of women”. It is not a question of direct cause-and-effect connection but of mutually connected relations. In Bulgaria, the share of employed women was 46.7% of all the employed in 2000. Women prevail in branches like education (79.6%); health and social work (75.7%); financial intermediation (61.7%); hotels and restaurants (57.7%); trade and repairing activities (51,4%)10. Basic share of GDP growth rate have trade and repairing activities; transport; manufacturing and power production (Table 1). There are branches which, although with temporal success, started generating employment, such as electricity, gas and water supply; trade and services; transport. In the short-term, on basis of the contribution of industries to GDP growth rate, the alterations in employment in general and the structure of female employment, we could expect new working places for women in trade and manufacturing industry, (the share of employed women in the latter is high although not prevailing). Education and health care are in process of reconstructing and decreasing of employment rate. Financial intermediation is intensifying its activities. The other branches have potential for expansion but only after a reconstruction and investments. What are the possible perspectives before these female employment structures in terms of the future more intensive globalization of economy in the country? To answer this question, it is necessary to outline the present stage of globalization an dits perspectives. The main universally recognized indicators characterising the integration degree in the world economic structures are several: 1) intensity of participation in the world trade flows; 2) volume and intensity of investment inflow and outflow (mainly direct); 3) number and volume of foreign physical and juridicial persons deposits in local banks. There sre also many other indicators for economic stabilityof the coutry, of banking stability, of political sustainabily, of adequacy of the industrial policy , etc. For the purpose of the current research however to main groups of indicators are used: • Intensity of the export and the situation of the balance of trade, • Direct foreign investments to Bulgaria. The foreign trade turnover has increased in 2000 (11,1 billion USD). The growth was by 18% as compared to 1999. The export volume reached 4.8 billion USD and the import volume - 6.4 billion USD (an increase respectively by 19,9% and 16,6 % compared to 1999). The registered negative balance (1.6 billion USD), however, was the highest since the beginning of transition period. An increased concentration of the export volume in 2000 was observed (growth by 21.6% by prices for 1999). The first ten commodity groups formed 60.3% of the export compared with 51.8% in 1999. The highest was the growth in textiles – by 24%; mineral products – 35%; metals and chemical products - 50%13. The import volume (again by prices for 1999) is increasing by 22.8%. By commodity groups, the highest import growth was in metals (by 54%), timber (by 43%) and chemical products (by 30%). The export value for the countries members of OECD and EU increased by 5.3% as that in 1999. The structure of export by countries was oriented to Italy and Turkey (25% of the export for 2000). The contribution of a commodity to trade balance shows the net export of this commodity as thousandths of GDP in comparison with its share of the theoretical trade balance if there was no specialization for the particular commodity It is calculated as: ((E-I)- [(E-I)*((E+I)/(E+I))]*1000/GDP, where E is export, I – is import, GDP – Gross Domestic Product Bulgaria has unfavorable foreign trade specialization. Basic contribution have metals (ferrous and non-ferrous), followed by clothing14. This structure of contribution provides an opportunity of expanding women’s employment in wearing industry. The foreign direct investments (FDI) inflow (table 4) still remains unfavorable. For the period 1992 – 2000 it reached 4 billion USD. According to data from the Bulgarian Foreign Investments Agency the inflow of FDI was oriented to manufacturing; trade and repairing activities; transport and communications. The investments in the first two branches would be of great importance for women’s employment considering the structure of female labour. There are general opportunities to stimulate women’s employment in trade sector. They could be extended after using the investments for setting up a new, re-constructing and improving the existing road network, development of communications, services and foreign tourists flow. Entering upon the international capital markets with an eurobonds emission was an important step for the country, as a part of the globalizing world (12.11.2001). After seven days, Sofia Stock Exchange started secondary trade with these first eurobonds. As a result the credit rating of Bulgaria has been increased. Although only generally introduced, trade and investment indicators mark rather unfavorable conclusions for the position of Bulgaria in Europe and in the World. The country is still economically weak so as to profit by the globalization advantages. For the present moment it is more important to minimize the negative effects of globalization and to stabilize the national economy. Regarding women’s employment, the economic globalization till this moment has stimulated their participation in wearing industry and in the sphere of trade and services. There are threats which have an adverse effect on women’s employment such as: more opportunities of employment but mostly for women with lower level of education; qualification in small range of activities; limited access to spheres for professional realization as well as limited opportunities of growth in career compared to men; general limited opportunities of employment and strong structural unemployment.