How is women’s access to the labor market prevented?

Entering the labor market, the Armenian women appear in more unfavorable conditions than men – they spend more time finding job, more frequently are subjected to discrimination and paid less…

Despite their higher education level, young women have lower participation rates (36.8%) than men (53%) and significantly higher unemployment rates (36.6% versus 24.2%). In addition, young male workers get on average 1.5 times higher monthly salary than young female workers. These and other manifestations of discrimination against women in the labor market are evidenced by Nicolas Serier’s “Young Women and Men’s Transition to Labor Market in Armenia” (2014), as well as stories collected by WomenNet.am …

Before completing a Master’s degree, 24-year-old Anna had already been looking for a job in order to start working just after graduation.  Language specialists will argue thar no matter how good you are at a foreign language, it requires practice, and otherwise it will be forgotten. However, it turned out that foreign language professionals do not have much demand in the labor market, and more or less serious companies and reputable organizations do not even consider applications without work experience. At the end of the fall Anna was admitted to a job company dealing with international shipping, which had a rather serious marketing and external relationships department. True, Anna did not get a job at once, but a one or two month’s trial, after which they promised to admit her. However, 1.5 months later Anna was informed that she could no longer go to practice because she did not fit for some reason.

In fact that was an example of exploitation under pretext of the pretrial probe. There are many cases in our reality when a young girl refuses to work because of her parents.

Anyhow, young women are often hindered by not only the prohibition of unfair employers or parents, but also because of public opinion. The public stands for this or that area of employment.

Full text in Armenian