Development partnership Young-Mother/Family-friendly Employment (Slovenia)

Slovenian legislation in the field of labour relations, parental protection and equal opportunities of sexes represents an appropriate legal frame for equal position of young women/mothers and fathers in the labour market. Nevertheless, potential threat (and incidence) of informal discrimination has been detected in practice. Such discrimination occurs behind the doors and without any proof or witness. So far, no in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the issue has been performed - maybe due to a lack of empirical data - which represents an obstacle for solving the problem.

Sex discrimination in the labour market cannot be prevented only by good normative (legislative) regulation. One should aim at changing business, cultural, psychosocial and other social norms and patterns. In order to be as effective as possible, we will use the results of targeted research to develop appropriate tools for influencing various key actors. It is expected that such tools may be effective also in the wider social context.

The main aim of the development partnership Young-mother/family-friendly employment is to decrease hidden discrimination of young women-(potential) mothers - due to maternity - in the labour market. The target group - the one which we intend to help - are (potential) parents and in particular young women.

We intend to fulfil our goal through:

• Economic and sociological research on the extent of the problem, on which we will build our search for appropriate solutions
• Education of target groups (key actors), particularly employers
• Better informing of young (potential) parents about the employees' rights
• Public exposure of the issue of sex discrimination of young women in the labour market
• Public awarding of those firms in which people have a non-discriminatory attitude towards those who are planning or having small children.

Through these activities, public awareness will strengthen, and cultural, business and psychosocial behavioural patterns will go through the process of change. In changing the practice, further inclusion of equal treatment of sexes into prevailing policies (mainstreaming) will be needed. This should be done co-currently with changing behavioural patterns in the public sector.

Expected impact on practice is the following:

• Impact on psychosocial and cultural elements that influence the behaviour of key persons in firms
• Impact on the management's way of reasoning in order to make them understand that parental role of employees does no harm to the firms' financial results
• Impact on the informing, way of reasoning and acting of young women who may - due to maternity - face sex discrimination in the labour market.