Gender Segregation in Occupation and Education in Kosovo

Abstract

Inequality in labor market in Kosovo is persistent; the level of unemployment is highest in Europe. Unemployment rate is 35,1% and from this the level of unemployment for females is higher than males, with the highest level among females with low educational qualifications, primary and secondary and for unskilled. The aim of this paper is to present the level of segregation in education and also in occupation in Kosovo among the working population considering gender. Although there is an increasing level of females entering and finishing the education in each levels of education a gap between genders is still noticeable. The segregation in enrolment and graduation for females is still very concentrated in faculties of philosophy, philology, education, economics and medicine. Occupational segregation has the important role in gender inequality since it reduces the opportunities for females to be more concentrated to the jobs that are in the higher scale of the economy, we find that the main concentration of female employment are in education health and caring activities about 40 % of employed women are in these sector’s which is similar with other regional countries. Kosovo has also highest level of inactivity among the working force population from the latest LFS almost two-thirds of Kosovo’s population is of working age (15-64 years). Of those who are working age, 63.1% are not economically active. Activity and employment rates tend to increase with education for both men and women.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n2p511