In 2010, the European Union launched its quinquennial strategy aimed to achieve gender equality in and among its Member States regarding level of employment, salary, and to reduce gender violence.

The plan focussed on four main topics: enhancing female participation in the job market, hence ensuring economic independence for women; reducing the pay gap; increasing the gender balance in decision-making positions, both in the private and public sector; and fighting gender-based violence.

The strategy was complemented and integrated by a series of social protection measures already in place in the EU. Between 1975 and 2010, the EU promoted 15 directives, legally binding to the Member States, to support and promote equality.

Directive 79/7/EEC of 19/12/1978 aims at ensuring women and men have the same rights when it comes to statutory social security, regarding coverage and access to the regulatory schemes. 

Directive 92/85/EEC, states that pregnant or breastfeeding workers shall be considered as a category at risk, and hence are not required, for instance, to work night shifts.

The same directive also demands that all the Member States have in place measures to ensure women have the right to maternity leave (at least 14 weeks before or after the birth of the child), to pre-natal examination during working hours if needed and that no employers can fire a woman as consequence of her pregnancy.

The Recast Directive (2006/54/EC) prohibits direct and indirect discrimination in access to employment and in salary based on gender.

Enhancing female participation in the job market.

The EU aims at 75% employment rate for both men and women by 2020. It is not an easy objective, especially with the crisis still jeopardizing economic development and employment levels. But if it is complicated for men to find a job, women face even higher odds.

In 2009, one year before the deadline of the Lisbon Objective (60% female employment rate), eight countries out of 27 were below the target. The EU decided to invest in corrective measures, including a review of the European Legal Framework, the enhancement of child care facilities in its member states (through the preparation of the Barcelona Objective for extended child care) and to monitor more closely the implementation of the corrective measures in its Member States.

The majority of the communitarian initiatives focused on women living in difficult situations: single mothers, immigrants, disabled women, older women looking for employment. Seven years after, in 2016, the situation has improved and nine countries have female employment equal or above 75%, and the overall EU-28 rate has reached 75.9%.

However, a clear divide between Northern-Central countries and Southern-Eastern countries still exists. Greece, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Malta, and Slovakia still face a female unemployment rate close to 50%.

These are the countries where a cultural change still needs to happen, for women to unlock their work potential.

In Southern and Eastern European countries, there is still a general expectation for women to be the primary caretaker of their families, either to look after the children or to cater for other relatives’ needs. Based on these expectations, women are the first to leave their jobs or to stop seeking employment when their family needs them.

And this does not only have an impact on the overall female employment rate but also on the gender pay gap, the second point the EU tried to tackle with its 2010-2015 strategy.

Reducing the pay gap.

In 2010, the pay gap at the EU level was 17.8%. In 2015, 16%. While this represents an improvement, the situation is far from optimal for women, despite the several campaigns and monitoring tools implemented by the EU. The most recent data from the Commission shows that, once again, a change in culture is key for women to achieve salary equality with men. Among the first reasons for the current gap are the disproportionate sharing of family duties, which that often prevents women from applying for more remunerative positions, but also the historical legacy of ‘female jobs.' Women, again especially in Southern countries, tend to work in lower-paying fields: administrative, assistants, teachers, nurses.

The EU has tried to increase the participation of women in traditionally male-dominated fields, but the road to equality is still long.

And the historical legacy of ‘female’ professions also has an impact on the number of women sitting in decision making positions.

Enhance the number of women in decision-making positions.

In this context, the EU has achieved some significant results.

In 2009, in many countries, women were underrepresented in the key positions both in the political arena (European and National Parliaments) and in the private sector.

The overall presence of women on the management boards of public listed companies was 11% (EU-27), with Cyprus having the lowest score (3%).

In the national parliaments, Sweden had the highest representation of women (46%) and Hungary the lowest (9%).

The EU initiated a project to increase the female participation in management roles by keeping the debate alive and proposing for national election committees to adopt measures to increase women's involvement in politics. In the private sector, the possibilities for the Union to shape the appointment of board members were limited. But the EU continued campaigning. In particular against a certain culture that, for instance in the Slovak Republic, Austria, Poland, and Lithuania, perceived women as less capable of covering decision making roles (more than 30% of the people surveyed in these countries stated that ‘women do not have the necessary skills’).

Six years later, the situation has improved in 23 countries (out of the current 28), with Italy, France, and Belgium recording the biggest increase in the number of women sitting in their respective political bodies. Malta and Finland have respectively 65% and 60% MEPs elected, and Sweden follows closely with its 50%. However, the North-South the divide is present once again when it comes to national parliaments, with Malta having only 12% of women, and Nordic countries (Sweden and Finland) leading once again with 44% and 42%.

Also in the private sector, the EU initiatives have had a positive impact: in 2016, women sat in 23.3% of the management boards of EU-28 private companies. France has the highest percentage (37%), Cyprus has reached 10%, but other countries, like Malta, remain at the bottom of this chart too, with only 5%.

Fight the gender-based violence.

In Europe, one in every three women has been a victim of violence, one in every 20 has been raped, one in every three has been abused by her partner and only one in every three reports the violence to the police.

The EU has fought to raise awareness of gender violence, and, more concretely, has contributed to the preparation of the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, ratified by all the Member States between 2011 and 2016.

The Convention aims at enhancing the preventive measures, by creating awareness campaigns, increasing the information on the topic and supporting ad-hoc training for specialists dealing with the victims, such as police, nurses, doctors.

The second pillar is Protection, and its objective is for the Member States to set up a first support system able to provide victims with clear information on what to do after an attack, as well as increasing the number of help centres and shelters available.

Finally, the Prosecution section takes care of ensuring that gender-based violence is considered a crime in all countries, that timely investigations are carried out, and that abusers are kept away from their victims.

Once again, however, the cultural component plays a key role. In many countries, like Italy, a strong patriarchal set of values tends to discourage women from reporting abuses perpetrated by their partners. In some cases, the victim’s family is the first to try to dissuade her from leaving an abusive situation, as traditional family is still a cornerstone of Italian society.

Conclusions.

The 2010-2015 Strategy was an ambitious plan. The EU does not have, in these fields, the political and legislative authority to impose new regulations on its Members. Additionally, the Union is composed of countries with a variety of normative, political and cultural backgrounds; therefore, its actions need to be flexible enough to adapt to diverse environments.

 Thanks also to the complementing social protection measures, the plan has achieved some success, even though there is still a visible and tangible gap between Northern and Central countries on one side and Southern and Eastern on the other.

The biggest challenge ahead is now to face the cultural background that, in many countries, still makes women the primary, and often only, caretakers for their family and often makes them leave (or not apply for) more rewarding jobs. Only by maintaining a combination of social protection measures, such as anti-discrimination directives and additional support for working mothers, and by promoting a radical change in culture, will the EU be able to see, finally, a real gender equality.

The Strategy was renewed for three more years in 2016, and while the objectives remain the same, the EU should shape its action more towards filling the cultural gap and switching old, patriarchal values towards women-supportive beliefs and standards.

Given the little legislative and enforcement authority that the EU has versus its Member States when it comes to implementing regulations to reach gender equality, working on values it is the best possibility for European women – and the society as a whole- to progress and thrive.

 

 

References:

Council Directive 79/7/EEC of 19 December 1978 on the progressive implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security

 

Directive 2006/54/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 July 2006 on the implementation of the principle of equal opportunities and equal treatment of men and women in matters of employment and occupationDirective 92/85 ECC of 19 October 1992 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health at work of pregnant workers and workers who have recently given birth or are breastfeeding Strategy for equality between women and men 2010-2015, as adopted by the European Commission in September 2010.

EU gender pay gap statistics, updated by Eurostat as per November 2016

Istanbul Convention on Action against violence against women and domestic violence, entered into force on 1st August 2014

Factsheet on the Istanbul Convention, published by the European Commission in March 2016

 

This blog post is published as part of the Ambassador Series, which presents insights into social protection around the world from the viewpoint of our Ambassadors, a group of international online United Nations Volunteers who support the online knowledge exchange activities, networking and promotion of socialprotection.org.

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