Women’s employment plays a central role in transitional economies, especially in those
countries facing a labour supply constraint. Within this context women are called to
contribute to household income and their participation in productive activities is crucial to
reduce poverty and increase their empowerment in the society.
During the socialist regime in Albania the government policy of full employment boosted
female participation and, as a consequence, employment rates were higher than in most part
of OECD countries. Other set of policies, such as the investments in childcare facilities and
education, undoubtedly stimulated women to enter and remain in the labour market. However,
since the beginning of the transition to a market economy, women’s participation in the
labour market has consistently decrease, as confirmed by the reduction of the number of
employed women, the higher number unemployed and the larger share of housewives.
Consequently, the gap between men and women in productive activities has become larger
than during the socialist period, negatively influencing gender equality in the country.
The purpose of this paper is to identify and measure the effects of some social, economic and
demographic individual and household determinants that influence female employment in
Albania. Data are drawn from the Albanian micro-data of the 6th Round of European Social
Survey conducted between 2012 and 2013. Logistic regression techniques are employed on
survey data to estimate the odds ratios of female employment. The econometric findings will
be extremely useful to feed knowledge-based policies aimed at increasing female labour force
participation in Albania.