The intersection of ethnicity and gender in the Romanian labor market: the case of Roma women

Discrimination of Roma women in employment relations became a certainty in post-communist Romania. Although gender is the most frequent criterion of discrimination in labor market, from the statistics of the National Council for Fight against Discrimination, one can notice that the most frequent petitions were formulated mainly by men and had as object the discrimination based on ethnicity (Roma mainly), social category, age or religion. This fact shows that Roma women confronted with such situations either did not know who to address a complaint to or did not have the courage to do it. This article explores the history of the ethnic discrimination in Romaniaand illustrates how ethnicity and gender intersect in the Romanian labor market resulting in a lowrate of Roma women employment. As for methodology, the author used the analysis of employment advertisements, official statistics and documents of public institutions, the comparison between different Romanian Government programs aimed at fighting marginalization and social exclusion of Roma, study of anti-discrimination laws etc. In the section ofconclusions, the author makes some recommendations about the need of rethinking and remodeling public policies on preventing discrimination acts against Roma women.