Report on the GENDERWISE Final Dissemination Event
of the Institute of Sociology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA SZKI)

On January 23, 2007 we have organised our final dissemination event in the form of an awareness-raising conference where our Genderwise project team members presented lectures on the three main topics of (i) sharing of domestic responsibilities, (ii) gender (in)equality in the workplace, and (iii) socialisation and education.

The more than fifty participants of the final dissemination event included our team members, researchers of the Institute of Sociology and other research institutes, members of Hungarian NGOs, journalists, students and Zsuzsa Sebestyén, a representative of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (who also gave a short speech on the social equality of women and men). 

As a result of the dissemination event several articles/programmes were published/broadcasted in Hungarian media (including the Petőfi Rádió, the Kossuth Rádió, the hvg.hu, the Hungarian News Agency) on the topics discussed in the awareness-raising conference.

Short summaries of the lectures presented by the MTA SZKI Genderwise team members follow:

Sharing of Domestic Responsibilities (presented by Judit Acsády)

The presentation contained a short introduction about the context and he relevance of the problem of the sharing of domestic responsibilities, such as, social justice, equal chances at the workplace, economic and demographic arguments. Comparative data were presented that demonstrated several aspects of the sharing of household tasks and caring in different European countries. The Hungarian situation was shown with the help of time-scale statistics and results of researches on attitudes concerning housework and also some data concerning the dilemma of the decrease in birth were discussed.

Reconciling Work and Family life – Not for women only (presented by Fruzsina Albert and Attila Bartha)

Since the end of WWII women have transformed the world of work and today almost half the labour force is female. However, the increasing participation of women on the labour market has not been coupled with a more intensive involvement of men in domestic (unpaid) works. Post-socialist countries (including Hungary) indicate extreme imbalances in this respect: the stronger presence of women led to excessive overall (paid and unpaid) 
working hours. Work-life balances reflect a persistent gender inequality in Hungary at the expense of women. In order to achieve more harmonious gender relations in the world of work, fundamental changes and a more active involvement of men in these changes are unavoidable. Positive and negative incentives related to paternity leave, employment opportunities of former parental leave-takers and the contradictory character of flexible work were the main regulatory issues tackled in the presentation. In addition, we also 
revealed several cultural aspects of reconciling work and family life and we suggested some policy options to raise public awareness of gender issues.

In the presentation we also provided a brief statistical overview of some significant differences between men and women in various EU countries (number of hours spent on paid work versus housework, part-time employment, fathers' leave etc.) Then we reviewed some factors that inhibit or enhance the labour market reintegration of women, such as childcare facilities, flexible working arrangements, financial allowances, and the problems of social norms regarding this field. Finally we highlighted some aspects where men could play a role in changing the present situation, in top political or entrepreneurial positions, within their 
families, and in the media.

Familism instead of Feminism (presented by Csaba Dupcsik)

We stressed that according to the international comparative attitude researches could suggest to the outsiders that Hungary is a strongly premodern society. However, studying the real factors we could disprove this first impression: Hungary, as in the case of the other social, economic, and cultural dimensions, to be located somewhere inside of the (rather wide) European scales. In the presentation we showed some historical background information to the phenomenon of discrepancy between attitudes and real behaviour of population. We proved that all of the historical periods during the 20th century used the ideology of Familism. Both right and left wing political powers have found their legitimisation in this ideology.