Gender equality and employment in the European Union

Résumé du document

Gender equality is among the fundamental principles and the common values of the European Union. In the 2nd Article of the Treaty of the European Community, it is even mentioned as a "task" to perform for the Community, and again in Article 3(2) TEC. But two questions already appear: what can the European Community do exactly? And is the task performed well, is the goal achieved? Equality between men and women can concern several fields, but we shall focus here on the working conditions and incentives to work for women, in other words gender equality at work. Why is it a topic very much tackled during the recent years? The Lisbon Summit in 2000 underlined the question of women labour force, as a source of growth that the EU strongly needs, as a purpose in itself, but also in order to achieve other economic goals like full employment or European competitiveness in the world. The year 2007 is for the European Commission the "European Year of equal opportunities". In this framework many surveys have been made and the Commission itself has broadly and deeply stated on the situation of women and employment in the EU. When studying the issue of gender equality at work, one would not avoid dealing with other issues as reconciliation of family and work life and family policies in general, but also the questions of gender pay gap or women and their access to top-management positions. The challenges faced by women are very well summed up in the Commission's "Road map for equality between men and women 2006-20101": "Many women have attained the highest levels of education, entered the labour market and become important players in public life.

Extraits

[...] The best example remains Denmark, with the third best birth rate in Europe and the best rate of women in participating to the labour market (more than 70 France, that very recently hit the jackpot and took the lead of the EU with two children per woman, also knows an employment rate for women lower than, but not far from the Lisbon target. How can it be explained that the two rates can either have a positive relationship, or a negative one? It seems that measures favouring gender equality also help the reconciliation of work and family life for both men and women, which boosts both employment and birth rates. The word “reconciliation” is then more than appropriate. [...]

[...] Yet the EU level, meaning the European Council but also the European Commission, is taking over on the topic. How did it gradually take over? Since the European Employment Strategy in 1999, the employment has gradually become an EU common matter. Since the Spring European Council of 2003, the Commission has to deliver an annual report on gender equality developments in the EU. In 2006, the Community Programme PROGRESS was created, including gender equality as one of the policy areas. [...]

[...] Through our study and especially the comparative approach, it seemed obvious that some practices were quite successful. Concerning reconciliation of work and family, it is necessary to have for both parents the possibility of choosing any kind of solution, between taking a long parental leave, benefiting from childcare subsidies, having access to cheap childcare services with opening hours coordinated with working times and for children from less than one year old until school age Both birth rate and women employment rate shall be boosted if basically a woman has the possibility to either stay at home or go back quickly to work. [...]

[...] Denmark is already at the stage of getting aware of further problems than only gender pay gap or different employment rates. For instance there is the fact that women are themselves divided in several different groups (age, ethnic minorities, All municipalities provide guaranteed childcare from the age of 9 months to the school age of 6 years old un/skilled, etc). At the same time, a new reform of local employment policy was just put in place last January, and we will see how this and the decrease of influence of labour market parties will influence gender equality. [...]

[...] This solution has been very successful, especially in the Netherlands where of women opt for this kind of job contract. What is more, when looking at the part-time jobs in the EU-15 in were taken by women (OECD, 2006). Once again this side of the coin should not hide the fact that these contracts often go with lower wage rates, and are not always beneficial for women who choose them. Another point is that a part-time job does not always mean flexibility; therefore it happens that, although it appears as a good solution, some problems remain for women to be encouraged in working. [...]