Empowering mothers for accessing the labor-market

<< Background >>The motivation for the MoWe4Job project stemmed from the urgent need to address the gender employment gap, which remains a critical issue across Europe. The socio-economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic have further exposed inequalities, disproportionately affecting women and especially mothers, who continue to experience job insecurity, reduced working hours, and difficulties in balancing work and family life. Despite policy efforts, the underrepresentation of mothers in the workforce persists, reinforced by traditional caregiving roles, limited access to flexible work arrangements, and a lack of structured support for their professional reintegration. Additionally, digitalization has widened the skills gap, with many mothers lacking the necessary competencies to compete in an evolving job market. This project was designed as a response to these challenges, providing mothers with targeted training, awareness initiatives, and policy engagement to foster their economic inclusion and ensure a more equitable labor market.<< Objectives >>The project aimed to place the gender economy at the center of the post-pandemic recovery dialogue by strengthening mothers’ soft skills and facilitating their access to the labor market. More specifically, the project pursued three key objectives: 1) to raise awareness on labor market barriers for mothers and the mitigation measures for enhancing a better socioeconomic inclusion and promoting a cultural change through family roles rebalancing (i.e. the system of paternity leaves); 2) strengthen mothers’ skills to access the labor market by activating their softs-skills and a work-life balance strategy and developing new digital skills; 3) initiate a dialogue with local public authorities, job centers and trade unions on actions to reduce the maternity gaps in the labor market access and create the conditions to remove discrimination in the workplace.<< Implementation >>The project was implemented through four main activities: 1) Project Management – A structured coordination system was established, including transnational meetings, financial and technical monitoring, and quality assurance measures to ensure smooth implementation; 2) Awareness Campaign – This involved the development of a questionnaire targeting working mothers in 3 countries to assess their soft skills and skill gaps, forming the foundation for both the awareness campaign and the design of a tailored training program. The activity also included international cooperation meetings with local authorities, job centers, and trade unions to discuss gender-related employment barriers and promote policy recommendations; 3) Training Program to improve competitiveness in the labor market – Designed to empower mothers by strengthening their soft and digital skills, it was delivered in a blended format, with 2 face-to-face and 3 online modules; 4) Communication & Dissemination of Results – A comprehensive communication strategy was developed, ensuring that project outcomes were widely shared through social media, press releases, newsletters, and events, fostering engagement with stakeholders and the general public to maximize impact.<< Results >>The main concrete outputs and results were: - A Questionnaire was distributed to 150 mothers, collecting responses from 103 working mothers across the three territories—Spain, Italy and Malta. - A detailed Result Analysis to assess employment barriers, and communication and skill gaps. - An Awareness Campaign to help the general public understand employment challenges faced by mothers and showcasing best practices and possible solutions. - Three international cooperation meetings (one in each partner country), engaging public institutions, job centers, trade unions, and experts. These events facilitated discussions on employment barriers, parental leave policies and measures to reduce maternity-related employment gaps, leading to concrete policy recommendations. - A Training Program consisting of five modules was implemented, providing 30 mothers from the three participating countries, with soft and digital skills to enhance their employability - A Self-evaluation questionnaire to assess participants’ progress in acquiring relevant skills. - A set of Guidelines on the measures and policies to reduce the mothers' gap in the job market, compiling a detailed analysis of best practices and successful strategies from partner countries.