At the first gathering of two business associations, one of which has only women members – the Association of Businesswomen of Serbia, and the other has only men – the First Business Association, the Commissioner for the protection of equality, Brankica Janković, spoke about the importance of promoting gender equality, which implies equal rights, responsibilities, and opportunities.

“Although society is moving forward, there are still social, cultural, traditional, and other prejudices about gender roles, and it is still not uncommon to have a discriminatory opinion that women are incapable of becoming successful entrepreneurs”, said the Commissioner.

According to data from the report on the state of gender equality for the year 2022, when it comes to women’s involvement in economic life and their economic opportunities, Serbia fell from 54th to 77th place in the world. According to a survey on the factors that contribute to the “glass ceiling” effect, 78 percent of women claim that women and men are not treated equally at the workplace, as many as 67 percent of the women respondents work at lower positions as employees, and only 4 percent of women in Serbia are at positions of directors, presidents, and members of supervisory boards. Also, in this research, 54 percent of women respondents stated that they have lower incomes than their partners and 56 percent that they have lower incomes than their male colleagues who perform the same or similar work tasks, while flexible employment is not possible for almost half of them.

At the meeting of two business associations, it was concluded that we can only eliminate entrenched gender stereotypes together, through the partnership of all key actors, bringing in different life experiences and perspectives, where the principle of equals and the principle of equality apply without exception.