Labor market engagement of women is very low in Kosovo - only 12.5 percent of women of working age are employed compared to 41.3 percent of men - suggesting that women face obstacles to work and or being hired. These barriers can be related to a multiplicity of factors, including labor regulations - such as maternity provisions - but also others such as disincentives to work from taxes and social protection systems
limited flexible work arrangements
limited access to information, networks, and productive inputs such as credit
and lack of access to childcare, coupled with social norms and attitudes towards women. This note focuses specifically on regulations related to maternity and family leave, and their potential impact on women's labor market outcomes. Legislation on maternity leave in Kosovo was enacted with the law on labor on December 2010, providing mothers to nine months of paid leave and three months of unpaid leave. The note is organized around five main messages that emerge from reviewing the evidence of the impact of maternity leave on female labor force participation and employment, both through international benchmarking of maternity leave duration and payment forms in Kosovo, review of existing studies, and through data collection and analysis of Kosovo-specific qualitative evidence.