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AN OVERVIEW OF GENERAL SOCIO-ECONOMIC SITUATION IN SERBIA
economic sectors. Rural women, Roma women, single mother, home makers, elderly
women, women from minorities and women with disabilities are in the hardest position
and at the greatest risk of poverty 56 .
§ 33. Labor market is not the only space in which differences in economic position of
women and men may be observed. Very indicative in that respect are data on ownership.
Women in much smaller percentage appear as the owners of real estate, car and savings;
2.4% of women have a private company, 3.4% of them have some savings, 16.2% owns a
flat, 10.8% owns a house and 9.3% agricultural land 57 .
§ 34. For women in Serbia, transition means serious aggravation of social protection
and health care. Although new traditionalism and clericalization of society insist on
the sacredness of traditional family, accusing women in Serbia that they are mostly to
blame for drop in the birth rate, women are not effectively encouraged and supported to
have children, while the attempts to reduce to the detriment of women the standards
achieved after the Second World War are not that rare. An example for this is that the
absence from work for the purpose of maintaining pregnancy is treated and paid as any
other sick leave, i.e. a woman receives only 65% of her salary, while the employer has
the possibility to reduce it even more. Some municipalities and the City of Belgrade have
started to compensate for this difference. Further, the Autonomous Women’s’ Center,
after having conducted an analysis of the spending of budgetary resources intended for
nongovernmental organizations, found that the state allocates nearly 14 times more
resources from the state budget for financing the associations of veterans, including the
associations of veterans from the 1912-1913 Balkan wars, then for the compensation for
pregnant women on maternity leave 58 .
§ 35. Until the beginning of the 1990s, women had participated in political life, but
without real power. Before the first multiparty election, there had been 17% of women
in the Federal Parliament, but in the first makeup of the National Assembly of Serbia
following the multiparty parliamentary election, there were as few as 1.6% of them. In the
course of the 1990s, the share of women among MPs never exceeded 5.6%.
§ 36. At the same time, during this period women were very active in the opposition, in
particular in non-parliamentary movements and civil society. It is estimated that women
made up half of participants of the citizens’ and students’ protests in 1996-97, while one
woman was the opposition leader 59 .
§ 37. After dethroning the regime of Slobodana Milošević in the December 2000 election,
56
Dokmanović M., Ženska prava u zemljama Balkana – u raljama tržišne ekonomije, Ženski centar za demokratiju i ljudska prava, 2004, Subotica
www.globalizacija.com
57
Blagojević M., Rodni barometar – društveni položaj i kvalitet života žena i muškaraca Srbija 2006, AŽIN – Beograd, Altera MB – Budimpešta, 2006.
58
In cooperation with NGO Transparency Serbia and financial support of the Fund for Open Society and the Institute for Sustainable
Communities, the Center for Development of Non-Profit Sector is implementing the project “Line 481”, aimed at more
transparent allocation and spending of budgetary funds intended for NGOs, providing access to budgetary assets under equal
conditions for civil society organizations and building sustainable partnership of local governments, NGOs and the media. Source:
http://www.crnps.org.rs/2010/najvise-iz-budzeta-dobija-srpska-pravoslavna-crkva
59
Vesna Pešić, then president of the Civic Alliance of Serbia (Gradjanski savez Srbija) political party.
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