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In 2013, a proposal by Macedonian research scholars Marjan Petreski, Nikica MojskoskaBlazevski and Plagica Petreski won the second place in the Japanese Award for Outstanding Research on Development, achieving a research grant, training on research communications and access to tailored mentorship opportunities from a subject-matter expert.
The team developed a web-based tool to test the fairness of wage levels based on personal and socio-economic characteristics. The web tool, EdPlaKo is both an analytical tool, and a practical instrument for levelling wages and reducing retribution bias, gender biases in particular, in the hands of unions, employers and government agencies. Among other things, the web tool allows to visualize gender wage, employment, and unemployment and inactivity gaps according to two personal characteristics at a time.
The nature and user-friendliness of the tool was well-suited for both high-profile and public dissemination efforts. Interviews with the research team established that the tool was publicized widely through the distribution of leaflets in public spaces, discussed on national radio programmes and newspapers. The team also presented their work directly to the Macedonian Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, who in return referred it to Macedonia’s Parliamentary Commission on Equal Rights for consideration. The web tool and research findings have also been disseminated to a broader set of stakeholders such as employers’ organizations and trade unions through their mailing lists as well as small and medium employers, who can obtain an EdPlaKo ‘certification’ if they use the tool to analyze and reduce wage gaps. The research was also published in the Journal of Labour Research in 2014. The team has extensively disseminated the research findings through the national Macedonian radio, an expert opinion piece for the monthly magazine, ‘Lice v Lice’ and a blog post on two national portals – Economic Talks and Faktor.
Through the networking opportunities offered by GDN to its grantees at the Annual Global Development Conference, Marjan Petreski also teamed up with another Japanese Award winner, Sara Wong, to work collaboratively on a research funded by the Inter-American Development Bank. The research has also promoted the careers of the team members, who were contracted by the International Labour Office to study wage gaps in Macedonia from a gender and maternity perspective.
Project: The Japanese Award for Outstanding Research on Development
Research: The Gender Wage Gap in Macedonia: The EdPlaKo web tool
Grantees: Marjan Petreski, Nikica Mojskoska-Blazevski and Plagica Petreski