Our starting point is that the women’s economic situation depends on cultural, legal and structural components, so the economic inequality is multi-pronged phenomenon. Willingness, policy-making, special strategies and reforms, activity of NGOs, civil organisations may influence the female position.

At the other hand “Policies, laws, and rights are strategic instruments or tools that promote or inhibit women's participation in economic decision - making, in access to resources, but women must know and must be willing to use these instruments.”

Civil and political, economic and social rights together form the framework for the women active participation in the life of the society.

Economic and social rights manifest in the lives of women through their effective access to:

(a) Labour and income sources that guarantee the human development of women.

(b) Working atmospheres that promote women´ s personal and professional development and give them fair pay in their contribution to production.

(c) An education that enhances women´ s capacities.

(d) A social security system that guarantees women’s health and their enjoyment of leisure and resting time.

(e) A home and environment that guarantee women’s health and the rest required enjoying a dignified quality of life.

(f) Social organizations that promote the interests of women in different areas in life such as family, working place, community, the political and labour union activities, among others.

On the basis of above mentioned we assume that nature of economic rights of women are defined among others by the following factors:

• Legal an strategic factors: legal instruments (laws, regulations), policies, strategies
• Institutional factor: existence of governmental and civil organisations, NGOs supporting the women’s economic (and social) rights
• Access to labour market, to income sources
• Access to education
• Access to social security and welfare systems.

The Hungarian Constitution lays down the principle of anti-discrimination in complex (holistic) approach, saying, “The Republic of Hungary shall ensure the equality of men and women in all civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.”

In Hungary the women’s economic rights are laid down mainly in the following laws and regulations:

• Act XXII of 1992 on the Labour Code (for the employees in the competitive sector, latest amendments in 2003)
• Act XXIII of 1992 on the Legal Status of Civil Servants (latest amendments in 2003)
• Act XXXIII of 1992 on the Legal Status of Public Employees
• Act LXXV of 1996 on Labour Inspection
• The Government Decree (218/1999 (XII. 28.) on particular violations of regulations
• Act LXXVI of 1993 on Vocational Training
• Act LXXXIII of 1997 on the benefits of compulsory health insurance (regulating pregnancy and mother’s and childcare benefit and the absence pay for nursing sick children)
• Act XX of 2003 on the amendments of Labour Code
• The Act on Family Provisions
• Legal regulation in consequence of the harmonisation of national legislation with the EU Directives on equal opportunities

• Council Directive 97/80/EC on the burden of proof in cases of discrimination based on sex;
• Council Directive 75/117/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the application of the principle of equal pay for men and women
• Council Directives 86/613/EEC and 76/207/EEC also have been transposed by the amendment of the Labour Code
• Several acts and regulations on Health and Safety at Workplace
• EC legislation on equal treatment in agriculture and self-employment and on equal access to employment and vocational training was transposed into the Hungarian legislation in the second half of 2001

According to the EOWM report the trend in Hungary in the past decade has been to adjust and align the existing legal and political framework to that of countries in the European Union. It is around this background, and within the context of EU accession, that the modification of the Labour Code, which has been in force since 1 July 2001, took place.

a. The Introductory Provisions of the amended Labour Code lays down the prohibition on discrimination:

“In connection with an employment relationship, employees shall not be discriminated against on the grounds of sex, age, marital or family status or any handicap, nationality, race, ethnic origin, religion, political affiliation or membership in workers' representation organizations or activities connected therewith, or on the basis of any other circumstances not related to employment.”

b. The Introductory Provisions of the Labour Code lays down the equal opportunity for promotion:

“ Employers shall provide the opportunity to employees for advancement and for promotion without discrimination, solely on the basis of professional skills, experience and performance, and on circumstances deemed substantive with regard to the position in question.”

c. According to the law any consequences of discrimination shall be properly remedied but in such way that the legal remedy afforded to an employee discriminated against shall not result in any violation of or harm to the rights of another worker.

Act LXXVI of 1993 on Vocational Training focuses on equal opportunities for all (there is not positive discrimination for any strata): “the acquisition of professional knowledge necessary to establish an employment relationship based on equal opportunities”.

The percentage of the 25-64 year-old people with university education, which indicates the share of highly skilled human capital, is 14%. More importantly, the trend has been continuously rising since the start of the economic and political transition. Today enrolment in tertiary education is at 72%, and the net entry rate to university education is at over 50%. The circle of people trying to obtain second and third diploma has been also broadened (despite that it frequently costs a lot.) At the same time the problem of the overpopulated universities and decreasing standards of higher education has been appeared.

In practice the proportion of female and male students in the vocational schools did changed only slightly during the last 20 years. The female participation in the vocational training increased from the 31,6 % (1980) to 36,2 % (2000), meanwhile the male participation decreased from 68, 4% (1980) to 63,8 % (2000).

In the case of higher education the weight of female and male students has been changed: in 1980 yet the proportion of female students was almost equal to the proportion of male students, in 2000 already the number of female students was 3,6 % more (53,6 % as a total) than the proportion of male students (46,4 %).

The official Hungarian labour market plans, strategies, programs elaborated by the labour market agencies, ministries, - also as part of applying the acquis communitaire - etc. take into consideration the objectives European Employment Strategy.

The National Development Plan, Operative programme for Human resource development (elaborated in the Winter of 2002, accepted in Spring 2003) contains several instructions in relation with the equal opportunity and gender equality.

The draft of Equal programme for Hungary 2004-2006 has been elaborated, the civil society had the possibility to make observations until 10th September 2003.

The minister of Equal Opportunities elaborated the Equal Opportunity Programme of the Republic, the main pillar of what will be a national network of equal opportunities supported by civil organisations. It contains also training programs and programs to form the public opinion in what the media will have an important role.

According to the Act LXXV of 1996 on Labour Inspection, the Labour Inspection – in case of request - has the right to act in cases of the violation of anti-discrimination provisions too. We have to note that in the everyday life for a rank and file employee it is not so easy to use this tool as it is based on the own request. In case of violating any law protecting against discrimination there is possibility to go to the Court. The problem is that the gender-based discrimination can hardly be proved.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman for Civil Rights safeguards the civil rights, among others the protection against any discrimination.

In 2003 in Hungary a minister without portfolio in charge of equal opportunities has been nominated. Together with such objectives as to create equal opportunity for marginalized strata, minorities like Roma, it addresses the gender imbalance.

The Government Decree (218/1999 (XII. 28.) on particular violations of regulations also stipulates that discrimination is to be penalised. Section 93 (1) of the Decree construes the behaviour of the employer to refuse the employment of the worker on grounds of the employee’s gender or to discriminate between workers on the same grounds as a violation of the effective regulation

Women’s Committee of the National Confederation of the Hungarian Trade Unions promotes the idea of equal treatment in the collective agreements and establishing workplace bodies to monitor the realisation of the principle of equal pay for equal work.

The National Research and Methodological Centre for Labour Relations collects data on wages

In the political life the role of the Hungarian women has been limited. This limited performance has slightly changed during the last decade. Following the Parliamentary elections of April 2002, the number of women represented in the House has slightly increased (from 31 to 34 seats, representing almost 9 % of all delegates). Following the Parliamentary elections of April 2002, the number of women represented in the House has slightly increased (from 31 to 34 seats, representing 8.8%). Despite that after the Parliamentary election of 2002 three women were nominated as ministers were, at the second half of 2003 only two women ministers has remained (two was changed for a man and one new ministry has been created, the Ministry of Equal opportunities). The Speaker of the House is a lady too. Naturally, it is still does not represent the proportion of the women in the Hungarian society and population. The female participation in the political life – like parties, activists – is low too. Not at last because of the double duty of the women – work and household as well.

In general, we may assume that the level of women's political participation is higher in local governments than at national level.

The attitude of society towards women in the work place is contradictory. “Hungarian society can be regarded as rather conservative in its gender stereotypes. This could be a reaction to the feminism and emancipation propagated under communism”. According to the conservative ideology the place of the women is at home. But the reality is that the need for two breadwinners in households has not changed and according to various survey the main motivation for the women to work is to make ends meet.

During the first half of the 1990s the economic activity of both genders has diminished not at least due to the restructuring economy, crisis of the not competitive industries and companies, privatisation process, modernisation of the production, etc.

In 1992 the employment rate of women was 66,7 %. In 2002 women represent only 45,6% of the economically active population. It means that in the course of the previous decade great masses of women were forced out of labour market.

In 1992 the male employment rate was 76,9, and in 2002 it was less than the female employment rate in 1992, that is 61,7 %.

Million persons

A survey by age group revels the uneven distribution of employment growth. The number of those in employment declined somewhat among the 15-24 year-old, but increased in every generation of the 25-54 year-old.

The unemployment of both genders appeared in Hungary but it was more massive among the men than the women. In 1992 the unemployment rate was 9,9 %, but the proportion of women among unemployed constituted only 40 %. This proportion has been slightly increased during the next years but the unemployment rate has been decreased. In 2003 – with an unemployment rate of 5,3 % - the proportion of women among unemployed is 43,4 %. We may assume that during the past decade an approximately stable ratio of 40 % of women against 60 % of men among the unemployed has been characteristic. Notwithstanding, we have to mention that many women opted for different practices to avoid being present among the unemployed. Such practices are the early retirement, childcare, participation in full time education or training, taking part in micro or small family companies without registration, etc.

As consequence of the economic modernisation and change of the production structure even during the 1990s the employment rates of the three main sectors have been modified. In 1992 52,3 % of the women of active age group were employed, 4 % of them in the agriculture and 15 % in the industry, 33,3 % in the service sector. During the 1990s the situation has changed: the proportion of women in the agriculture more than halved (1,8 % in 2000), and also their participation in the industry diminished (to 12,5 % in 2000), meanwhile the employment rate for women in the service sector increased to 35,5 % in 2000.

More than half of the women are employed in the service sector, but still the manufacturing has important role in the employment of women (22,5 %). In the service sector has been appeared new activities like real estate and financial services – they employ 8,6 % of all workwomen.

In the “traditional” female sectors like education and health, social care are employed the one quarter (1/4) of all employed women. (In 2000 85 % of teachers and 50,1 % of doctors were women.)

The processing industry, trade, education, health care employs almost two thirds of the working women, and if we take into consideration the administration as well, then the mentioned sectors employ the ¾ of the working women.

As a total in 2000 almost 62 % of non-manual workers were women and men occupied only 38 % of the positions.

During the decade of the 1990s the proportion of manual workers decreased and the non-manual workers increased, particularly in positions requiring a university degree.

But the situation is not so nice if we look at the managerial posts: hardly more then one third among those at the top of the employment hierarchy are women.

The proportion of high rank women managers even declined to 2000 relative to 1994.

In the area of non-manual occupations, the steadily declining office and administrative jobs (clerks) to a greater extent are becoming female jobs: there are few men in such positions.

In 2000 around 35 % of manual job women and 65 % by men occupied places. If we have a closer look we see that women occupied more than half of the places in services and trade. Among the machine operators and assemblers the proportion of women significantly increased (from 21 % in 1994 to 27 % in 2000). We have to note that in the second half of the 1990s in many village areas the multinational companies opened filial offering assemblers places for the free labour force in the area.

The number and rate of simple occupations requiring no vocational qualification declined significantly.

Theoretically and legally the women are entitled to the same pay for the same job. Despite of it the practice is another.

“ (1) In respect of the remuneration of employees for the same work or for work to which equal value is attributed no discrimination shall be allowed on any grounds (principle of equal pay)….

(4) The wages of employees - whether based on the nature or category of the work or on performance - shall be determined without any discrimination among the employees .”

We have to note that the according to the Labour Code “'wage' shall mean any remuneration provided to the employee directly or indirectly in cash or kind based on his/her employment”

As we mentioned the Labour Code concerns the employment relations in the competitive sector. In case of public employees and civil servants the two concerned laws contain a classification system, what must be applied equally for both genders. Section 42 of Act XXIII of 1992 on the Legal Status of Civil Servants and Sections 60-66 of Act XXXIII of 1992 on the legal status of public employees concern the classification criteria.

The research programme undertaken by the National Research and Methodological Centre for Labour Relations (OMKMK) and completed in 2000 analysed the wage differences between men and women in the period of 1986 -1996. The report on the research concludes that between 1986 and 1996 the rate of the decrease in the real wage of women was lower than that of men, so their lag behind men in terms of wages also decreased. While in 1986 the monthly wage of women did not reach 75% of men’s monthly wage, by the year 1992 this proportion exceeded 85%, and it remained stable at this level. (According to another sources the female gross wages reached 88,6 % of the male gross wages but the net wages only 84 % of the male net wage. See the data and table below).

Among young workers the wage difference is relatively small and stable, whereas in the category of the older age group, in the category of people with higher education degrees and in management positions the gap is significantly wider and constantly increasing.”

In the budgetary sector (the public non-competitive sphere) women's average wage situation was even worse, it was only 77.4% of men's average wage.

In the competitive sphere women's wage in relation to the men wages was somewhat better, it reached the 82.69% of men's average wage.

Source: Eurostat, Statistics in Focus, theme 3, 5/2001

Exchange rate of HUF and the Euro and USD

1992, average: 80 HUF/USD

2000, average: 260 HUF/Euro

The situation concerning the female gross wage-gap has been deteriorated in the decade of 1990s; in 1992 the gross wage-gap was 11,4 % meanwhile in 2000 it was almost near to the 20 %. In case of net wages the situation has not changed much, in 1992 the gap was 16 % and almost the same (15,4 %) in 2000. The pension gap in 2001 was a little bigger than the net wage-gap (17,1 %)

The mainstream of working relationship for men and women is the full-time work performed at the work place.

The tele-work and the part-time employment are not frequent in Hungary, although there were taken steps and even government financial support to create more tele-work. The fixed-term work – which is considered as well as a type of atypical employments – are in contrary much more frequent than the part-time and tele-work type employments.

The year to harmonise Hungarian labour legislation with the EU acquis has been 2003.

The Act XX of 2003 on the amendments of Labour Code (§ 10 (Labour Code § 79) deals with the Council Directive 1999/70/EC of 28 June 1999 concerning the framework agreement on fixed-term work concluded by ETUC, UNICE and CEEP.

The same Act XX of 2003 on the amendments of Labour Code deals with regulation on part-time work in accordance with Council Directive 97/81/EC of 15 December 1997 concerning the Framework Agreement on part-time work concluded by UNICE, CEEP and the ETUC. The Labour Code concerns the topic of part-time work when the employee initiates to perform the work in part-time.

Despite of this part-time employment seems to be a contradictory subject. Based on various reasons (but mainly because of the growing unemployment) during the 1990s it has been often recommended to women to choose to work in part-time which is more adjustable to the family life also.

The reality is that in 2000 only 3,6 % of employees worked in part time, among them a slightly more women (4 %) than men (2,1 %).

Prior to the change of the regime – before the 1990s – many would have liked to work part-time, particularly mothers with children. Even in 1995, parallel with the drastic change in real wages, 10 % of working women – some 100 thousand persons – would have undertaken part-time job. We note that by this time more than one third – mainly pensioners – worked in part-time anyway.

In 1999 around 20.000 women aged 15-49 were asked on the ways of harmonisation of child rearing and employment. Nearly 70 % agreed that women should work and the great majority (76 % of the manual workers and 78 % of non-manual workers) were in favour of the part-time (4-6 hours) employment of women. 51 % would have liked to work part-time.

In practice part-time employment is - as it was told – very scare. Although the according to the survey women in theory would like the part-time jobs but in the practice we may find low willingness from both parts, from the employers’ and from the employees’ part as well. The low willingness from the employees’ part is mainly due to the low wages, and from the employers’ side it is due to the extra labour costs in case to employ two part-time workers instead of one full timer.

6. Access to the labour market

Several times the employers advertise a job indicating that the candidate should be of certain age group and sex (in general young and men).

A pioneering authoritative ruling of fundamental importance was brought in the context of discriminatory job advertisements in Hungary in 1997. A private employer - published a job advertisement for a vacant position of an assistant. The job advertisement stipulated that the ideal applicant, besides other requirements, should exclusively be a man aged 25-35 years. The plaintiff, a woman of 51 years, met all the other requirements enlisted in the job advertisement. In its verdict the court established the violation of law and prohibited the defendant from further acts of legal violation in such and similar cases.

Despite of it we may find advertisements of similar content or (expressed way of discrimination concerning a group of employees) or we may face hidden discrimination when the employer applies the discriminative measures at the first telephone call or CV sending (mainly against Roma, people with disability, aged population, r women with small children or young women with the expectation to have soon child).

7. Working informally

In 1993 according to the estimations the informal (hidden) economy represented 25-30 % of the Gross National Product In Hungary and in 2003 – according to the data of Tárki – the informal sector corresponds only for 15-16 % of the GNP.

According to other source – GKI – in 2000 the informal sector formed 20-30 % of GDP and in 2001 21 % of the same.

We may assume that tendency is decreasing not at last because of the stricter control of the economic performance by the labour inspectorate. There is also growing possibility to find for the - mainly micro - enterprises satisfying tools to legalise the economic activities. Notwithstanding there are some sectors and sub sectors of economy where informal employment is more frequent – like building industry, agriculture, and retail trade. This latest may be considered as atypical female sector; meanwhile the other is a sector where predominantly men are working.

The so-called grey employment has been more frequent than the totally “black” employment. It means that the employee works for minimum wage and receive the other part of his or her income into the pocket. Or until now existed the practice to employ somebody for minimum wage and the other part of the income was paid to the employee like small entrepreneur or self-employer. A third variant is that the employee does not receive salary kind income but receives the payment against his or her bill issued by his or her as small entrepreneur or self employed despite that the relation between him or her and the employer is normal and permanent wage-earner relation. According to a new regulation this kind of practice has to be finished by the beginning of 2004.

Speaking about informal (hidden) economy we must tackle the problem of significant regional disparities in the country: for example the per capita GDP in PPS of the central region around Budapest was 76% of the EU average, while that of the northern great plain stood at a modest 32%. The official unemployment rate in the Northern Hungary region in 2001 remained at 8.5% (with evidence suggesting a considerable level of hidden unemployment adding to this ratio) while Budapest and the industrialised west of the country enjoy virtually full employment. We have to mention too, that in some remote and landlocked areas and very small villages we may find unemployment almost a 20-30 % or even all population is without any registered labour. As they also survive in some way their economy may be considered totally informal (household economy).

1. Mothers fall under more favourable regulations in terms of the determination of service years (maternity leave, childcare provision, and the length of maternity provision entitlement are considered as service years). Mothers are entitled to 365 days additional service time after each child born before 1 January 1968.
2. According to Section 121 (1) of the Labour Code a woman, from the time her pregnancy is established until the time at which her child reaches one year of age, and minors may not be assigned night shift work. (Work carried out between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. shall qualify as night shift work.)
3. A woman from the time her pregnancy is established until her child reaches one year of age shall be temporarily placed in a position suitable for her condition from a medical standpoint (Section 85 (1))
4. A woman from the time her pregnancy is established until her child reaches one year of age shall be temporarily placed in a position suitable for her condition from a medical standpoint
5. The Labour Code regulates the access of the working women to time allowances during their pregnancy and motherhood. According to it women in the pregnancy period or giving birth shall be entitled to twenty-four weeks of maternity leave.
6. Further, the employee shall be entitled to a leave of absence

a) In order to care for the child until the child reaches the age of three;

b) In order to care for the child until the child reaches the age of fourteen, if the employee receives a child-care allowance;

c) In order - in the event of the child's illness - to provide home care until the child reaches the age of twelve.

7. During the first six months of nursing, a woman shall be entitled to two hours of work time allowance each day, and one hour daily thereafter up to the end of the ninth month.
8. Upon the employee's request, the employer shall permit leave of absence without pay for any extended nursing or home care (hereinafter referred to as "nursing") of a close relative for the duration of care, but for a maximum of two years, provided the employee personally provides such care.

Although the Hungarian law meets the requirements of the EC Directive on parental leave the man are rarely encouraged to apply for parental leave.

The collective agreements may contain certain benefits for women (positive discrimination in this sense) like extra holiday or monthly one extra off day for mothers. The women as mothers have legal rights concerning the childcare like in case of sickness of small children the mother is entitled to sickness pay

Pregnancy and mother’s and childcare benefit and the absence pay for nursing sick children are regulated by Act LXXXIII of 1997 on the benefits of compulsory health insurance too.

1. Pregnancy and Young Mother’s Benefit is payable to women who were insured for at least 180 days within the last two years prior to the birth. The benefit is payable for the term of the maternity leave.
2. Childcare benefit (GYED) is payable from the day following the expiry of the period of entitlement to the pregnancy and young mother’s benefit until the child reaches the age of two. It is a sick-pay type benefit, adjusted to the earnings of the mother (or father). The childcare benefit shall be 70% of the calendar daily average wage. The maximum monthly amount of the benefit is determined by the Act on the Annual Budget.
3. Childcare aid (GYES) is paid to parents, foster parents or guardians until the child raised in their household reaches the age of three. It is - as before the transition of regime - a fixed amount of provision due till the age of 3 of the child. The amount of provision always equals to the amount of the minimum old-age pension.

Employers shall not terminate an employment relationship by regular dismissal during

• pregnancy, for three months after giving birth,
• maternity leave
• leave of absence without pay for the purpose of nursing or caring for children.

Despite to the generous law, according to a survey in 1999 more than 40% of mothers (from a sample of 5000) could not return to their original job, and in 80% of cases the labour contract was terminated by mutual consent. (In this case the employer is not obliged to severance pay.)

We have to make differences between the activity of mothers with children under three years old and children between 3 and six years’ old. Also for children under 3 years old there are nurseries, but the number of places in nurseries has been declined at the first half of 1990 because of the decline of subsidies. Later the local governments started again to develop the nurseries. At the same time the possibility provided for the mother to benefit from the earnings-related childcare allowance and childcare benefit three years reduces the need for places in the nurseries. Mainly women in high position or of intellectual work send the children younger than two years old to the nurseries.

At the beginning of the 1990s half of the children of 3-6 years’ old visited childcare facilities (kindergarten). Surveys in the second half of the 1990s showed marked increases in proportions of both men and women wanting the mothers of children under six to withdraw from employment.

Despite of it and despite that a significant proportion of women feel that their children under the age of six will suffer lasting emotional damage if they go out to work, during the last years almost more than 80 % of children under six are in kindergarten (in the school year of 2000/2001 86 %, and in 2001/2002 83 % of children visited the kindergarten. We have to note, that the Education Act requires children to attend school preparation at kindergarten once they are past their fifth birthday.

So, we may assume that the places in nurseries and day care centres (kindergartens) are satisfactory, those women who want to have their children in these institutions have the possibility to do so. Behind the institutions run by local governments a great number of private institutions has been started its function to offer a possibility of choice for the parents. Frequently mothers with higher position and high earnings think that it is better for her child to be with a hired baby-sitter of private nurse. But it is her choice and not a need. Notwithstanding to the extra services offered by private institutions (like English classes, music, etc.) the institutions run by local governments offer a high or even higher quality of service than the private kindergartens, not at least because of the century old tradition of nursery in Hungary, and due to the competence of the private institutions. Kindergartens of alternative pedagogical approach frequently run by foundations – like Montessori, Waldorf, religious – are at the disposition of the mothers too.

Before the change of regime also in Hungary the big factories frequently had their own nurseries and day care centres. These institutions in Hungary also had been almost totally disappeared and in the majority of cases the buildings and the nurses (and children) were transmitted to the local governments.

The nurseries and kindergartens sometimes play a supplementary role to overcome the effects of the poverty: for children of preschool age in the crisis-hit regions they mean the main (or even the unique) source of food. The school-age children in the primary school receive so called day-care too: apart from the hours of education the day care grants catering, supervision of learning, education and playing.

Children facilities have primordial importance for the single mothers in Hungary (in 2000 the proportion of single mothers was almost 30 %).

The number of birth outside of family has been decreased: in 1990 still only 15 5 of all births happened outside marriage, meanwhile in 2000 already 25 % of them were outside marriage. Despite that in the majority of these cases the father recognizes the child as own and also lives in the same household, the flexibility and mobility of these ties is greater than in the traditional family causing sometimes psychological burden on the mothers.

In Hungary there are already some legal tools in case of complaint against sexual harassments. These legal tools are the same Constitution, the 4. and 5^th paragraph of the Labour Code and in serious cases the same Penal Code.

Despite of the legal tools in Hungary the vast majority of the sexual harassment remain unknown as the employees afraid to be fired or to have a long-lasting work place conflict. The reality is that there are not even reliable estimations concerning the number of the sexual harassments in the workplace as well as in the homes. Together with the brutality in the family this latest is also a latent problem often caused by the very frequent alcoholism.

“The role of women in the labour market has gradually changed over the last fifty years. To begin with, they could only find unskilled work or office jobs, as their average level of education lagged behind that of men. Today half of all university students, and more then half of those completing their secondary education, are female. Sectoral gender segregation is present in Hungary as much as anywhere else, with, for example, 90 per cent of teachers being women. At the same time, a good number of those entering supposedly "male" professions--like medicine, law or engineering--are female. The flow of women into management positions is entirely a post-1989 phenomenon. They normally break into middle management but there are more and more women taking up top executive positions in the burgeoning banking sector.” (Tóth, Olga (1994))

Despite these positive trends however we may encounter in the everyday life with several constraints, obstacles. The practical realisation of the well formulated regulations, laws and standards – not at last based on EU acquis - is not enough alone. Further efforts are also needed to ensure the practical enforcement of the acquis on anti-discrimination and equal rights. Well established institutional system to enforce the anti-discrimination legislation is needed including the civil organisations as well. Positive measures or affirmative actions are needed as well.

Discrimination in the field of employment is still widespread, in spite of the relatively extensive system of anti-discrimination sanctions under the new Labour Code. An adequate system of sanctions and needs to be developed and the efficiency and not at least the capacity of the existing Labour Inspectorate must be increased. The violation of regulations must be adequately penalised.

In case of Hungary it must be take into consideration, that during the first years of transition to market economy and modification of the whole economic structure was accompanied by heavy decline of the production and fast growing unemployment, causing the deterioration of working women’ situation. But since 1994 the industrial output has started to grow. During the latest years the growth of the Hungarian GDP has been increased creating a better framework for the working woman too.

But despite of the growing economy a huge problem has been presented: that is the growing gap between the different strata of the society and the regions hit formerly by economic crisis and the rest of the country. In other worlds, the economic growth has not automatically and equally spread its positive effects within the whole population and territory of the country.

Notwithstanding of the evident progress towards equal rights of women there are groups with high difficulties, living in deep poverty and unable to use the possibilities given by the law, education system, etc. If you are Roma woman, single mother, unemployed, more than 45 years old, living with disability and in a remote, landlocked area or in an underdeveloped region of Hungary, or you are characterised by two or three or more of the above mentioned characteristics, you may have not much hope concerning the fulfilment of your economic rights… Women and local units in this position are not able to overcome alone this situation: they need external help, positive actions from the different parts and participants of the society, including governmental and non-governmental organisations as well. In May 2004 Hungary enters the European Union. The Joint Assessment of the Employment Policy Priorities of Hungary was signed by the European Commission and Hungary. According to the priorities Hungary’s employment policies should aim at increasing the overall employment rate, in particular for women, addressing regional mobility and reviewing the tax and benefit systems to increase incentives for inactive people to seek and accept job offers. It may be another hope for the women in need…

Fóti, Klára (ed) (2003): Alleviating Poverty: Analysis and Recommendations, 2000-2002,UNDP, Budapest

Frey, Mária (1993), "Women in the Labour Market", Társadalmi Szemle, No. 3, pp. 26-36.

Gal, Susan & Kligman, Gail (eds.) (2000) : Reproducing Gender: Politics, Publics and Everyday Life After Socialism, Princeton University Press

Halmai, Gábor (ed.) (1998): From the Concept of Elimination of Discrimination Towards the Concept of Affirmative Action, Indok

http://free.x3.hu/vmtanacs/kiadvanyok.htm

UNICEF (1999): Women in Transition - Regional Monitoring Report, UNICEF International Child Development Centre

Munkaerőpiac keresletét és kínálatát alakító folyamatok (2002) Budapest

Employment in Europe (2001), EC

Gazdasági és Szociális adattár (1999) MSZOSZ

Labour Force Survey, 1992-2000, (2003) CSO

CSO household budget survey, 2000 (2003) in: Human Development Report, 2000-2002, UNDP