Invisible Walls: Employment Struggles of Women with Limited Education in Albania

The current study explores the employment struggles of women with limited education in Albania.They face challenges that affect their access to the labor market, considering how their employment opportunities are influenced by social, economic, and cultural factors.Key barriers included, but were not limited to, a scarcity of jobs, strong societal norms, financial constraints, and skills-labor market demand mismatch.The latter are confined to low-paid, insecure jobs without benefits or career development opportunities.This study also describes the important additional constraints placed by the patriarchal culture, responsibilities for care, and discrimination in reducing these women's possibilities for meaningful labor market participation.This is a qualitative research study, with interviews from diverse women, as the researchers provide a rich view of the struggle and resilience of the participants.These personal testimonies demonstrate how their challenges are a result of precariousness at work and financial difficulty to lack of access to career enhancement and support systems.The interviews reveal both similarities and differences of Albanian women as they experience employment challenges such as job insecurity and financial insecurity, educational limitations, societal norms and family responsibilities, limited access to professional development and support networks, unique experiences of discrimination and self-doubt.The findings suggest that is essential the need for targeted interventions in terms of expanding vocational training, flexible work arrangements, support for entrepreneurship, and inclusive employment policies.Such systemic barriers, identified in this paper, require deep changes in policies that transform women's economic functions, challenging broader social norms to greater equity and inclusion in the workforce in Albania.