ISTANBUL, 15 May 2025 – More investment in support for families is needed to address gender inequalities, ensure healthy child development, improve family well-being, boost economic growth, and ultimately create more inclusive and resilient societies, the UNFPA Regional Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia said on today’s International Day of Families.

The United Nations Population Fund emphasized that for family support policies to be effective, they must be gender-responsive. This means they must respond to gender inequalities, including in unpaid care work, protect women’s rights, and not perpetuate harmful gender norms, roles and stereotypes. 

A new joint UNFPA/UNICEF study, “The Cost of Not Having Gender-Responsive Family Policies,” shows that the lack of policies and support for families benefiting women, men and children carries substantial social and economic costs. 

“More generous and well-designed family support policies benefit individuals, families, companies, and societies as a whole – and they strengthen countries’ capacity to address demographic change,” said Florence Bauer, UNFPA’s Regional Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. “They are a fundamental pathway towards building more inclusive, genuinely equitable, resilient, and ultimately more prosperous societies.”

The study shows that deeply entrenched gender norms across the region continue to assign primary responsibility for caregiving and household work to women. These expectations result in women in Europe and Central Asia spending significantly more time on unpaid care work than men, sometimes five times as much or even more. The limited availability or narrow scope of family policies disproportionately affects women, often forcing them to choose between employment and having children. The resulting lack of access to resources and economic independence, and the underutilization of women's skills and potential, lead to decreased economic productivity and slower overall growth. 

Moreover, the lack of gender-responsive family policies denies children crucial learning opportunities and hinders their development, which diminishes their potential for future economic contributions and contributes to inequality, thereby making it harder for countries to build the human capital necessary for inclusive socioeconomic development and demographic resilience.

A recent mapping of family policies across 21 countries and territories in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia reveals varying levels of progress and significant remaining challenges:

Maternity leave: Legally mandated in all countries and territories, with durations ranging from 16 to 52 weeks. However, the availability of financial benefits and overall accessibility vary, with self-employed mothers often excluded.

Paternity leave: Legal provisions exist in most countries and territories but are absent in Georgia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Where available, leave is often short (e.g., 7-14 days) with low uptake due to inadequate compensation or workplace concerns, despite its positive impact on father-child bonding and challenging gender norms.

Parental leave: Available in nearly all countries and territories, but eligibility is restricted to mothers in three. Duration varies widely (44 working days to 156 weeks), and differing compensation levels impact uptake, especially among fathers. Self-employed parents in seven countries lack access to cash benefits. Czechia is the only country to grant parental leave to same-sex parents.

Carer's leave: 19 countries provide carer’s leave, but it is only paid in six countries, and not always in full, and is often restricted to the care of children. 

Flexible working arrangements: Part-time work for parents is common (14 countries and territories), but work-from-home (10 countries) and flexible schedules (7 countries) are less widespread, with varying eligibility criteria often limited to mothers or parents of young children.

Early childhood education and care: Access to affordable, high-quality childcare for children aged 0-2 is limited, often requiring substantial out-of-pocket payments. Pre-primary systems for children aged 3+ are more common (19 countries and territories), but costs can still be a barrier. Fourteen countries show a significant gap with neither adequate parental leave nor statutory childcare available for substantial periods.

Family and child benefits: These vary significantly in eligibility and benefit levels, sometimes contributing to exclusion or stigma. Birth grants are common, but adoption allowances are rare.

Based on the study’s findings, UNFPA calls for sustained and intensified efforts to develop and consistently enforce gender-responsive family policies. This requires:

• Prioritizing gender-responsive family policies in national policymaking.
• Addressing existing policy gaps and implementation challenges.
• Actively challenging discriminatory gender norms through education and awareness campaigns.
• Promoting the sharing of unpaid care and domestic work among women and men within households.
• Substantially increasing access to affordable, quality early childhood education and care, as well as adequate family and child benefits to reduce the childcare gap.
• Actively encouraging men's uptake of paternity and parental leave through adequate compensation and supportive workplace cultures.
• Strengthening collaboration between governments, the private sector, and civil society to enhance existing provisions and establish new, comprehensive support systems for families.

Media contact:
Jens-Hagen Eschenbaecher, UNFPA Eastern Europe and Central Asia, eschenbaecher@unfpa.org