An overview of women’s work and employment in Azerbaijan
1. Introduction: The Decisions for Life
project
The DECISIONS FOR LIFE project aims to raise awareness amongst young female workers about
their employment opportunities and career possibilities, family building and the work-family balance. The
lifetime decisions adolescent women face, determine not only their individual future, but also that of soci-
ety: their choices are key to the demographic and workforce development of the nation.
DECISIONS FOR LIFE is awarded a MDG3 grant from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Af-
fairs as part of its strategy to support the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals no 3 (MDG3):
“Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women”. DECISIONS FOR LIFE more specifically focuses on
MDG3.5: “Promoting formal employment and equal opportunities at the labour market”, which is one of
the four MDG3 priority areas identified in Ministry’s MDG3 Fund. DECISIONS FOR LIFE runs from
October 2008 until June 2011 (See www.wageindicator.org/main/projects/decisions-for-life).
DECISIONS FOR LIFE focuses on 14 developing countries, notably Brazil, India, Indonesia, the CIS
countries Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and the southern African countries Angola, Botswana,
Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Project partners are International Trade Union
Confederation (ITUC), Union Network International (UNI), WageIndicator Foundation, and University of
Amsterdam/AIAS.
This report is part of the Inventories, to be made by the University of Amsterdam, for all 14 countries
involved. These Inventories and the underlying gender analyses are listed in the Table. All reports will be
posted at the project website. In this country report on Azerbaijan the sequence of the sections differs from
the table. The report covers mainly Activity nr 1.03, the Gender analysis regarding pay and working condi-
tions (or, as Chapter 2 is called here, work and employment). Included (in section 2.4) is Activity 1.01, In-
ventories of national legislation. Activity 1.02, Inventories of companies’ regulations, will take place through
a company survey. Preparations for Activities 1.03a and 1.03b have resulted in a number of lists, to be used
in the WageIndicator web-survey for country-specific questions and their analyses (Chapter 3). References
can be found in Chapter 4; Chapter 5 gives more insight in the WageIndicator.
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