Labor market engagement of women is verylow in Kosovo - only 12.5 percent of women of working ageare employed compared to 41.3 percent of men - suggestingthat women face obstacles to work and or being hired. Thesebarriers can be related to a multiplicity of factors,including labor regulations - such as maternity provisions -but also others such as disincentives to work from taxes andsocial protection systems; limited flexible workarrangements; limited access to information, networks, andproductive inputs such as credit; and lack of access tochildcare, coupled with social norms and attitudes towardswomen. This note focuses specifically on regulations relatedto maternity and family leave, and their potential impact onwomen’s labor market outcomes. Legislation on maternityleave in Kosovo was enacted with the law on labor onDecember 2010, providing mothers to nine months of paidleave and three months of unpaid leave. The note isorganized around five main messages that emerge fromreviewing the evidence of the impact of maternity leave onfemale labor force participation and employment, boththrough international benchmarking of maternity leaveduration and payment forms in Kosovo, review of existingstudies, and through data collection and analysis ofKosovo-specific qualitative evidence.
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