Suchergebnisse

This article's aim is to explore the role of personal contacts at the transition from school to work and compare these effects across countries with various levels of market development. Using data from school-leaver surveys for Ukraine and Croatia and applying propensity score matching, we focus on the probability of finding initial employment and the quality of this employment among those youths who adhered to personal contacts compared to those relying on formal methods of job searching. Our results reveal that personal connections yield greater economic benefits for job entry in transformation countries with more developed market structures.

AbstractThis article contributes to understanding change in gender regimes in post‐communist countries. Using Croatia as a case, it juxtaposes the observed change in key indicators of the position of women in various walks of life with the context of the European gender agenda and the positions of actors involved in the national political arena and policies introduced throughout the transition period.The article reviews the previous enlargement waves and indicates that the gender agenda was added to the negotiation process rather late – primarily via the EU accession conditionality requirement. Although narrow in scope and often limited in impact to just 'paper compliance' with EU legislation, it opened discussions in the gender equality area in post‐communist countries and empowered women's organizations. In all the countries, the implementation of the European agenda was heavily influenced by the power and discourses of the main actors involved.The article provides a map of social actors involved, together with gender‐related policies as they have changed in three distinct periods in Croatia. The final analysis of observed practices and structures indicates very slow change and the crucial impact of structural and institutional developments as well as economic cycles, but little association of observed developments with dominant discourses or policies implemented over the past two decades.