The event, held in Zagreb on Monday, promoted a project on women on the labour market, funded with EUR 3 million by the European Union, as well as a study on women's position on the labour market.
The study should serve as an incentive for creating a pro-active policy for employment of more vulnerable groups in society, such as women above 40 years of age, Roma women and women from rural regions.
According to the findings of the study, there are more working-age women than working-age men but women are less active and less employed, the study director Sanja Crnovic-Pozaic said.
Broken down by education, there are more differences among women than between women and men, as younger women are included in education more than men, and more than older women.
The position of well-educated young women could considerably improve on the labour market in the next 10 years, she said.
However, the burning problem is a large number of women above 50 years of age being unemployed who Crnkovic-Pozaic said were an unused resource.
Crnkovic Pozaic said that the current legislative framework did not stimulate women from poorer families to seek employment as children's allowances and maternity benefits stimulate them to have more children.
She also spoke about a lack of balance between demand and supply on the labour market.