In the recommendations issued by the committee, it is emphasized that the state should take targeted measures to reduce unemployment among women. Women should have the opportunity to be employed in the formal sector, including being represented in leadership positions; amend the Labour Code and the Law on the Public Sector in order to reduce the gender pay gap; carry out regular salary surveys and discuss the issue of increasing the minimum salary fixed in 1999; facilitate an equal distribution of domestic and child care responsibilities between women and men.
The Committee also urges the State to ratify a number of ILO conventions.
More specifically, the Concluding observations on the sixth periodic report of Georgia are as follows:
Employment
- The Committee welcomes that harassment, in particular sexual harassment, in the workplace and in public life has been legally defined as a form of discrimination against women in 2019. The Committee, however, remains concerned about:
(a) The disproportionately high unemployment rate among women;
(b) The continued horizontal and vertical segregation in the labour market and the concentration of women in low-paid jobs and in the informal economy;
(c) The widening gender pay gap, despite economic and income growth in the State party, which unevenly benefits women;
(d) The limited access to social protection schemes for women working in the informal sector;
(e) The disproportionate burden on women of unpaid domestic and childcare responsibilities and the persistently low number of men availing themselves of parental leave while the child is below three years of age, despite the recent introduction of a parental leave scheme.
- Recalling its previous recommendation (CEDAW/C/GEO/CO/4-5, para. 29), the Committee recommends that the State party:
(a) Take targeted measures, including under the Active Labour Market Policy, to reduce unemployment among women with an emphasis on unemployed internally displaced women and women living in conflict-affected areas, single mothers, young mothers, rural women, women with disabilities, and lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex women;
(b) Take steps to eliminate horizontal and vertical occupational segregation, including by adopting temporary special measures, such as vocational training and statutory quotas, to promote women’s access to formal employment, including leadership positions;
(c) Amend the Labour Code and the Law on Public Service to give effect to the principle of equal pay for work of equal value in the private and public sectors in order to narrow and eventually close the gender pay gap, regularly review wages in sectors where women are concentrated and adopt measures to close the gender pay gap, including through gender-neutral analytical job classification and evaluation methods, and regular pay surveys, and consider raising the minimum wage fixed in 1999;
(d) Conduct a study to assess the participation of women in the informal economy, including with regard to access to social security coverage and retirement schemes, and on the basis of the results of that study, continue to review the current employment legislation and policy from a gender perspective, with a view to ensuring social protection for all women, including those employed in the informal economy and women with low income and/or self-employed women;
(e) Promote the equal sharing of domestic and childcare responsibilities between women and men, including by increasing the number of adequate childcare institutions and promoting the value and use of parental leave through awareness-raising campaigns;
(f) Ratify the Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention, 1981 (No. 156), of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the ILO Maternity Protection Convention, 2000 (No. 183), the ILO Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189) and the ILO Violence and Harassment Convention, 2019 (No. 190).