Ukraine needs massive investment in child care, elderly care, sick care and skill training to bring women into the workforce and help address the critical labor shortage in the country, a senior official of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said.
"Women are now really required to return to the labor market or to stay in the labor market, because of the large scale mobilization and the need to fill employment opportunities and jobs in sectors where women tended to be underrepresented," said Barbara Rambousek, the EBRD's global director for gender and economic inclusion.
"So there is a lot of upskilling and reskilling that is required, but also investments in care, childcare, elderly care, and care of sick people in order to allow women to play their part in the economy," she added. "That is really vitally important at this, this particular point."
Rambousek made the comments in a video appearance at the "Business and War. Dialogues about the future" conference organized by the New Voice of Ukraine media outlet in Kyiv on Wednesday.
Rambousek said women and children constituted the largest portion of refugees and internally displaced people at the outset of the 2022 Russian invasion and the women are now key to labor issues as Ukraine prepares for its massive reconstruction.
She also said that gender gaps in Ukraine are "comparable" with gaps in European Union nations but they were exacerbated by the war and the massive outflow of women and children.
*Transcript of comments and other notes available here.
