A large portion of care work is performed without pay, and often by family members. Research has shown that care work is usually performed by women, thus the work conducted by women continues to be devalued, unrecognized and goes invisible, and not counted as a contribution in national economies. The Western Balkans continues to be characterized by deep segregation of the labor market, with unequal participation of women in the labor force, where Kosovo accounts for the lowest percentage of active women at only 21.2% while 78% of women remain inactive. According to the MCC time survey, 32.2% of women are inactive because they look after children, 16% don’t believe there is a job for them, and 2.2% look after elders.

The labor market indicators in Kosovo show that 89.3% of women are workers, while only 3.8% are employers. Less than 10% of businesses are led or owned by women, and 46.9% of women have unstable jobs. In parallel, women spend 7.2 hours in household and care compared to 2.5% of men. Women mostly are busy cleaning (47%), cooking (21%), and taking care of children (21%) while only 4.5% of women would
not be engaged in housework compared to 39% of men, according to the D4D survey. The patriarchal mentality has a high prevalence among women and men. While the majority of the respondents in the D4D survey consider that both women and men equally should share the housework chores, women do not believe men should be responsible, while women continue to believe that childcare and housework are women’s work.