When the time comes for having children, too many women still face a difficult decision: career or family. Combining both priorities is challenging when childcare is unavailable, parental leave is limited and flexible work arrangements are rare. The result is that many women either end up with fewer children than they want, or are unable to fulfil their career potential.
Both outcomes have negative repercussions, not only for individual women who are left with fewer choices and opportunities, but also for society as a whole. When millions of women are in effect forced to give up their careers to take care of children and the household, their talents and other contributions remain untapped in the economy and public life. And when millions of women can’t have the number of children they want because that would in effect end their careers, the resulting low birth rates add further pressure on population numbers already in decline.
This is why UNFPA, with support from the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), is partnering with the private sector and governments to champion gender-responsive family policies in the Western Balkans and Moldova. Evidence shows that such policies – both at the national level and those implemented by the private sector – are powerful tools to shift discriminatory gender norms and redistribute unpaid care work so that both men and women can realize their career aspirations and their fertility intentions.
What does the Expanding Choices Program work on?
Working with the private sector to pilot and promote family-friendly workplaces, which can make significant improvements in gender equality, and benefits both companies and employees.
Supporting governments to strengthen and improve gender-responsive family policies promotes gender equality, more equal distribution of unpaid care work and boosts economic growth.
Addressing harmful gender stereotypes to expand choices for women and encourage men to take an active role in fatherhood and care responsibilities.
Building the evidence, knowledge and tools around this relatively new body of work to deliver evidence-based advocacy and create a tested and replicable model for gender-responsive family policies.
What are the programme benefits?
To companies:
Better reputation and competitiveness
Lower absenteeism, turnover, health-related and recruitment costs
Greater retention of female staff, especially working mothers returning to work after maternity leave
More inclusive and equal workforce
More innovative, productive and profitable companies
To governments:
Stronger demographic resilience
Supports the achievement of gender equality and women's empowerment
Increased uptake of national family-friendly policies and benefits
More dynamic labour market by removing barriers to women’s participation in the workforce
Increased economic growth
To societies:
More equally shared unpaid care work between men and women
Greater choices and capabilities for families to have the number of children they want
Positive and equal gender norms and roles are promoted
More equal, resilient and economically stable families
Better development outcomes for children, including health, education and well-being
“I was four or five when I realized there were some things I couldn’t do: I could run but not jump up and play French skipping,” said Anna Maisuradze, 34 years old, from Georgia. “When I grew up, I felt it even more, because of the way others treated me.”
Anna lives in Tbilisi with her husband and daughter. Her disability is the result of neonatal sepsis. Today, Anna has two artificial joints. She has experienced...
Summary of UNFPA Eastern Europe and Central Asia's “Inclusive Family Policies for a Better Future” conference which took place in Istanbul on 22 September 2022. The event brought together policymakers, the private sector and experts to discuss gender-responsive family policies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Join UNFPA Eastern Europe and Central Asia on 22 September for the live stream of our “Inclusive Family Policies for a Better Future” conference in Istanbul. We're bringing together policymakers, the private sector and experts to discuss gender-responsive family policies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
The opening session will be live streamed on UNFPA EECARO's YouTube channel. This session will set...
The Expanding Choices programme strives to develop and share knowledge, evidence and tools around family-friendly policies to support and further scale this work in the region. A number of assessments, case studies and reports have been undertaken and authored through this programme and can be found below.
UNFPA organized a study visit to Sweden for CEOs and senior management of 18 Champion Companies and government representatives from Albania, Moldova and Kosovo, as part of the Expanding Choices programme. The study visit was an opportunity for these representatives to get inspired from the Swedish model, hear from Swedish companies and share ideas on how employers can implement measures to better support gender equal...
Infographic series from UNFPA's Expanding Choices program on what family-friendly workplaces and gender-responsive family policies are, and how these can benefit governments, private sectors, and families.
This fact sheet provides an overview of the main findings of the report “Implementation of family-friendly policies and gender equality in the public and private sector” from an employer's perspective. The report was developed to assess the current situation, challenges, and problems in implementing family friendly and gender equality in the country policies and provide recommendations that would lead to improvement...
fewer children than they want, or are unable to fulfil their career potential. 
