Every born child is a blessing for the family, but this huge step in life brings with it big challenges and changes. The demographic development related to the dynamics of life in urban areas and cities has forced, especially new families, to face greater challenges, hence increased commitment required of the new family to respond to the need for work-life balance.

In Albania, maternity leave for mothers is a right guaranteed by law, that is largely applied in the public sector. Meanwhile, the private sector, which occupies a considerable weight in the labor market, still seems to have lots more to do in this direction.

Albania remains traditional in terms of guaranteeing the right to care for young families, where the woman is the only one who must sacrifice and abandon her professional career or work, to take care of the children. While, many European countries apply equal access to parental, maternity and paternity leave to women and men, where even men take paternity leave while women continue their professional career.

In Albania, with the support of UNFPA, the initiative "Expanding Choices: Gender-Responsive Family Policies in the Western Balkans and Moldova”, " is being implemented which aims to expand choices for women and families to have a work-life balance.

Renato is an employee at Euronews media company, which is one of the champion companies identified by UNFPA that applies several policies and actions towards family friendly workplaces. He tells us that the pleasure of becoming a father and creating a family is undoubtedly a great emotion, but it is at the same time a big responsibility and challenge. "It's not easy. The family requires a lot of commitment. I try not to mix the time I spend with my family with work", says Renato.

As part of the "Expanding Choices" project, Renato’s employer has applied friendly policies that help employees who have recently created families, in different ways. According to him, his employer has created the necessary facilities for him to be more present with his new family. "The support has been at maximum, enabling me to do what is most precious, spend time with my new family. Apart from leave days, whenever it was necessary to be at home and help my wife, flexible working hours, working from home have been granted to me”, says Renato.

Renato is very concrete and sincere when asked if his wife had to return to work before the maternity leave ends, would he be willing to replace her since this opportunity is offered by employer's friendly policies? He responded: “If necessary, definitely yes”.

Since Renato has benefited from these friendly policies and highly values them, he considers their implementation as important as the level of income. "Both are important, but for me what is more necessary are the facilitating conditions to stay close to my new family. During the time when I was expecting to become a father, if I would have to choose between a new job with higher income or the current position, I’m sure I would have chosen this company that offers friendly work conditions”, he says.

The "Expanding Choices" project aims to expand the choices for women so that they can fulfill their aspirations regarding career, family, and children, as well as the involvement of men in family care, to enable gender equality not only outside the home environment, but also inside it.

"Expanding Choices: Gender Responsive Family Policies for the Public-Private Sector in the Western Balkans and Moldova" is a project implemented by #UNFPAAlbania led by UNFPA Eastern Europe & Central Asia with the support of the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) funded by Austrian Development Cooperation.