Research implies that executive political office poses additional and different political challenges for women than legislative office. Yet, a few dozen women have accomplished their nations' highest executive office. Little research has been dedicated to the experiences of these women world leaders. This study builds profiles of the women leaders in the modern era and analyzes their background and political experiences in an effort to both identify commonalities among the women leaders and appraise the challenges they encountered on account of their sex.
The extent of differences in roles between men and women in Kosova is examined. Kosovar men devote 57 percent of their leisure time to earned income activities (i.e., agriculture, other self-employed, and hired), and only 4 percent to housekeeping. Kosovar women, however, devote 14 percent of their time to earned income activities and 65 percent to housekeeping. There are differences across Kosova's ethnic groups, with much less rigid gender roles among ethnic Serbian than is true for ethnic Albanians. Rigidly defined gender roles result in significant inefficiencies in the economy. Ethnic Serbian Kosovars have significantly higher incomes and lower incidences of poverty than their ethnic Albanian counterparts.