The impact of Early Childhood Care and Development services on Women’s empowerment in Albania Table of Contents
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VIII. Final discussionThe analysis derived from this study regarding the issue of women’s empowerment was done framed between the two main primary driver indicators established: social capital and human capital. The importance of this structure is that it allows going in depth in each indicator separately but also shows the interdependence between them to “achieve” empowerment. In this section the discussion will show how the evidence that was gathered with the methodology is conclusive in the fact that there is a direct relationship between ECD services and women’s empowerment in Albania. This means that the more investment and efforts directed towards improving ECD services and coverage that the Government of Albania makes, the more empowered Albanian women will be. Regarding social capital where drivers such as family and community networks, men’s role in childcare and levels of participation, the evidence shows that these are in fact related with the levels of empowerment of Albanian vulnerable women. Childcare services, either the ones that already exist in the country plus others, that have been proven to be successful in other countries, such as community based or traveling ECD initiatives, are key to strengthen family and community networks of different social groups, by allowing women to have more spaces to engage in these relationships. This becomes even more relevant for families who have CWD who according to the results, are the ones who rely the less on family and community networks. The existence of ECD services gives families the option of leaving their children somewhere or with someone for some hours a day or some days a week. This allows women to look for a job, work, study, socialize or do some other leisure activity. All of these factors are directly related with their level of empowerment. It is a fact that Albania is still a very patriarchal society where men have the auto-imposed role of breadwinners and responsible for the economic wellbeing of the family. This maintains customs such as: women are the only ones involved in child care and upbringing, women as only needed for household duties; women (teenage girls) need to marry and have family at a very young age to preserve the family reputation; women do not need to be out in the streets with other women or socializing. However, when mothers bring their children to ECD services and positive changes begin to be evident on the children and on the mothers there can be a change on the perception of fathers on their role in the family. This can lead to more harmonic relationships within the households. This is related to the fact that if women are working and gaining some income, they are now more empowered to talk and state positions on issues regarding the family. Their participation increases, not only in the household but also in the communitarian activities they engage. The study also gives evidence in the fact that the existence of ECD of quality reduces significantly the levels of stress in the household. Mothers affirm that when children are not in the house all day there is “silence” and tranquility that allows them to be more productive in their household activities. When family is reunited at the end of the day there is more harmony and less confrontations. This is related with the fact that mothers have less stress levels that can be attributed to childcare routines. There is a chain reaction that starts with the emotional balance that mothers project on their other children and husbands. The reduction of confrontations is also related with decreasing other risk factors for children and women such as domestic violence, child labor and sexual abuse, which violent, tired and stressed families are more vulnerable to suffer from. The other set of drivers are under the indicator of Human Capital. They refer to those indicators whose relationship to women’s empowerment is not a result of this study but the data gathered for this study does reinforce this fact. Those drivers are: education level, employment, income and leisure. Societies that manage to provide these to their female population tend to have higher levels of empowerment. The study reveals that women in Albania, in particular mothers of young children feel the same way and have experienced these changes thanks to the existence of ECD services. A total 77% of the women in the sample stated that the fact that ECD services exist, is directly correlated with positive changes in their lives. These changes are all associated with the potential of women to feel and act more empowered. The first positive change is that women who bring their children to an ECD service have more free time, and in second place, mothers argue that the most positive changes in their lives are on the emotional side. The first one implies women have more time to study, look for a job or go to work and have more leisure time (run errands, socialize with friends, read, etc). The second one relates to the fact that women openly state that because of the fact that they can leave their children in an ECD service that they trust, they are happier, feel more confident and secure. As stated before, one of the principal indicators of women’s empowerment is employability and the data gathered for this study reinforces this. The mothers who participated in the study did have a tendency to value free time to look for a job or go to work. Findings show that women in urban and rural areas are more inclined to look for a job if they could, as one of their priorities. Results show that the only group who did not mention this were those women in the suburban area of Tirana, which could mean two things: i) the fact that there are no jobs available makes woman not even think about the opportunity of working (although they do mention going back to school or continuing education or vocational training) or ii) women who live in this area are not allowed by their husbands to formally be employed or they just socially and culturally do not see it as an important or possible activity. This consists with the fact that the largest percentage of unemployed women in the sample are those living in the suburban area of Tirana. Albanian mothers do value this free time allowed by the existence of ECD services, also as a possibility either to go back to school (which they had to drop out to become a wife and mother, as society dictates), begin school or continue with higher levels of education. This tendency is more frequent in the cities maybe due to the fact that in urban areas there are more educational services and that the labor market is more competitive so education becomes an obligation in order to get employed. Regarding the most excluded groups of Albanian society, the study provides information that evidences that as the rest of Albanian women, roma mothers and mothers of CWD do see a direct relationship between the existence of ECD services and their possibilities of having more time for themselves to work or do other activities. This is a fundamental point because what data shows, is that these families are in fact the most excluded from services and it should be a focus area for development of more ECD initiatives adapted to cultural and contextual differences. As stated before, the other positive change reported by mothers that influences significantly the level of empowerment is leisure time. Women value this a lot and would definitely like more free time to socialize with other women and run errands besides everything else they need to do. Leisure is one of the most important assets people have during their life course. In particular for women it builds self-confidence, makes them feel happier, helps learn from similar women useful skills (ex. Breastfeeding good practices) and keeps them emotionally and mentally healthy. Again, ECD services play an important role when they represent an alternative for mothers to leave their children for some hours a day so that they can use their free time for leisure activities in their routines. Availability and access to ECD services is fundamental yet not enough. Data collected for the study evidences that mothers need to trust the service in order for them to leave their children under their supervision, specially the younger children. If these services do not fulfill the mother’s expectations in quality aspects they prefer to keep their children at home. Therefore in order to keep children enrolled in these services, allowing mothers to have more free time and reduce stress levels in these families, efforts need to be done in guaranteeing high quality for the services in the country. Due to the analysis of primary and secondary drivers it is possible to affirm that there is a direct relationship between services for children under 6 years old and their mother’s empowerment. Additionally one of the advantages of this analysis is that it allows inferring on other relations between indicators that can also promote empowerment of Albanian women that should be taken into account. Therefore, the existence of ECD services is not the only variable that impacts directly on women’s empowerment. Men’s role, family and social networks, level of education and availability of jobs and other social services also influence in women’s ability and willingness to go into the labor market. In particular, men have a big influence in the lack of women’s empowerment, not only because of the cultural resistance of workingwomen, and their young girls to pursue an academic path, but also because they conceive them as the main ones responsible for child and household care. Access to jobs, education and other services directed to women are fundamental to continue on the track of making Albanian women more empowered. As stated before, the existence of ECD services in Albania is also related with other benefits such as reducing domestic violence due to a decrease in levels of stress within the household and increase in family harmony. Therefore when investing in services for the younger children, the country is gaining in additional variables other than child care and child development. Directory: albania albania -> Communications strategy albania -> Various structural reforms in albania Download 247.72 Kb. Share with your friends:
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