"Now that Albania and Montenegro have their own Gender Equality Indices, they will be able to monitor their progress. With a detailed analysis of remaining gender equality challenges, politicians can use the Index as a strategic guide to plan policy measures," said Virginija Langbakk, Director of the European Institute for Gender Equality.

The results also reveal interesting findings in comparison with the EU. In the domain of power, Albania's score of 60.9 is remarkably higher than the EU average of 51.9. This reflects the high representation of women in political and economic bodies. However there is still a long way to go in the domain of time, with 51.1 % of women caring for children or grandchildren, older people or people with disabilities every day, in comparison with 24.6 % of men. In the EU it is 37.5 % of women, compared with 24.7 % of men

Montenegro's high score of 86.9 in the domain of health is close to the EU average of 88.1. And as in the EU countries, Montenegro has the most catching up to do in the domain of power, which scores 35.1. Motherhood remains an obstacle to career progress, with large numbers of women being asked about their marital status (64.1 %), how many children they have (45.5 %), or their plans to have children (35.6 %) in job interviews.  

Albania and Montenegro are the third and fourth of the EU candidate countries and potential candidates to develop a Gender Equality Index, following Serbia and North Macedonia. As the number of non-EU Indices gets bigger, it also allows a regional comparison among the Western Balkan countries and Turkey, helping them to learn from each other.

The Gender Equality Index in Albania was developed with EIGE’s support under the EU Instrument of Pre-Accession (IPA), funded by the European Union.

Source: https://eige.europa.eu/news/albania-and-montenegro-release-their-own-gender-equality-indicesv