Roma Women and Precarious Work: Evidence from Romania, Bulgaria, Italy and Spain
Roma Women and Precarious Work: Evidence from Romania, Bulgaria, Italy and Spain

Summary/Abstract: Roma studies conducted over the last 20 years, in different European countries, depict a general pattern regarding Roma women’s employment. Traditionally, Roma women depended on male breadwinners; they worked as housewives and had very low education levels. For this reason, they played a crucial role in preserving Roma traditional culture, raising children and taking care of the family. This article compares data from four European countries in order to visualise the employment patterns of Roma women and to generate an explanatory model by means of logistic regression. Data used in this research come from an international database (EuInclusive, 2011) containing comparable samples for Romania, Bulgaria, Italy and Spain. The traditional model of inactive Roma women is maintained in Romania, Bulgaria and Italy, with very high rates of unemployment. While the employment rate of Roma women in Spain is lower than the country’s national rate, it is significantly higher than rates from the other three countries (47 percent, in comparison with 26-29 percent). In the four countries, employed Roma women mainly worked under non-standard contracts (part-time, discontinuous, temporary or informal). The analysis of the employment explanatory factors controls for individuals, family/household and community factors. In Bulgaria, Romania and Italy, the individual factors (age and health status) are predictors for Roma women’s chances of employment. Romania and Bulgaria show stronger relations between community type (isolated, urban/rural) and employability.

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