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Good practice Imported

Serbia's Law on Gender Equality (2021) — Mandatory Biennial Employer Reporting

Serbia · Belgrade · See the Serbia profile · See the Belgrade profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 68% 52/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Serbia's 2021 Law on Gender Equality requires employers with more than 50 staff to adopt gender equality plans and file biennial reports to the Ministry, backed by fines up to RSD 2 million (~EUR 17,000) for discriminatory pay practices.

50 employees (more than)
Employer size threshold triggering obligations
RSD 2,000,000 (~EUR 17,000)
Maximum fine for violations
8.8 %
National gender pay gap (2018)
21.2 %
Gender pay gap for women with only primary education (2018)
Serbia's Law on Gender Equality (2021) — Mandatory Biennial Employer Reporting

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Government of the Republic of Serbia / Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs
Period
2021–present
Keywords
labour law, employment regulation, gender pay gap, public administration

Context

Serbia's Law on Gender Equality, in force since 1 June 2021, replaced the country's 2009 statute with binding obligations: employers with more than 50 staff must build gender-equality measures into their annual work programmes and file a biennial report on the state of gender equality within the organisation, including progress toward equal representation in management.

Results

The law sharply raised penalties for anti-discrimination and equal-pay violations, to fines of up to RSD 2 million (around EUR 17,000). Serbia's own Gender Equality Strategy (2021-2030) put the national gender pay gap at 8.8% in 2018, rising to 21.2% for women with only primary education — the baseline the reporting regime is meant to help close — but no independent, publicly available evaluation of the 2021 reforms' effect on that gap has yet been published.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs administering compliance and enforcement, HR/compliance staff within each employer (>50 staff) compiling biennial gender-equality reports

Conditions for success

  • Meaningful enforcement via raised fines (up to RSD 2 million) for anti-discrimination and equal-pay violations
  • Employer-level gender-equality measures embedded in annual work programmes, not just an isolated report

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes CERV — Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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