Equal Opportunities

A comprehensive definition of equal opportunities reads that it refers to the equal distribution of education, training, employment and career development opportunities to all individuals, irrespective of sex, race, language, religion, economic or family situation.

Equality between women and men, one of the main component contained in the above definition, is a fundamental right and a common principle of the European Union. The EU has made a major contribution to the improvement of women’s and men’s lives through a substantial body of equal treatment legislation and the explicit integration of the gender dimension into EU policies and instruments. There is a positive trend towards a more gender-equal society and labor market, yet gender inequalities persist, mainly to the disadvantage of women.
EUR-Lex

EU Legislation
In addition to the rights enshrined by the treaties of the European Union, 15 European Directives have been adopted between 1975 and 2010. The body of legislation adopted includes but it is not limited to ensuring the equal treatment of men and women at work, prohibiting discrimination in social security schemes, setting out minimum requirements on parental leave, providing protection to pregnant workers and recent mothers, as well as setting out rules on access to employment, working conditions, remuneration and legal rights for the self-employed.

EU Directives are legally binding for Member States and must be incorporated into their national legislation. This allows citizens who feel that they have suffered discrimination to take their cases to national courts. All Member States have established national equality bodies to monitor the application of gender equality laws.
European Commission

The European Social Fund
The European Social Fund (ESF) is a Structural Fund set up to tackle differences in prosperity and living standards across EU Member States and regions and is in particular devoted to promoting employment. Since 1993, the Fund has made equality between men and women one of its priorities, leading to important contributions to improving the situation of women in the labour market. Between 2007-2013, the ESF is particularly supporting the promotion of women in employment, the elimination of pay differentials, the promotion of equal opportunities and increasing women’s participation in the workforce.
European Commission

The European Regional Development Fund
The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is another Structural Fund that aims to strengthen economic and social cohesion by correcting imbalances between the EU’s regions. Among other things, the Fund provides financial support to encourage companies to create sustainable jobs. This Fund has in particular been used to promote childcare facilities. A recent innovation requires gender equality, non-discrimination and accessibility for disabled persons to be taken into account in all projects.
European Commission

The Progress Programme
This Programme was set up to help implement the employment, social affairs and equal opportunities objectives of the EU’s Social Agenda. The Programme has five sections: employment, social inclusion and protection, working conditions, non-discrimination and gender equality. The €743 million Progress Programme got underway in 2007 and will run until 2013 and €50.3 million has been allocated to fund gender equality projects.
European Commission

Equal opportunities for men and women have been a fundamental tenet of the European Union since its inception and the principle of gender equality is central to all its activities. The Treaty of Rome, signed by the six founding countries of the European Economic Community (1957), committed Member States to the right of equal pay for equal work for men and women.

The Treaty of Amsterdam (1997), stipulated that the promotion of equality between women and men was one of the EU’s fundamental tasks. It also introduced the elimination of inequalities and discrimination and the promotion of equality between women and men in all activities.
 

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000) states that equality between men and women must be ensured in all areas, including employment, work and pay (Article 23) and reaffirms the ban on discrimination on a wide number of grounds, including sex (Article 21).
The Treaty of the European Union (2009) commits Member States to non-discrimination and equality between women and men (Article 2 and 3). The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union provides that the Union will aim to eliminate inequalities and promote equality between men and women (Article 8).
European Commission

The Role of Men in Gender Equality
Gender relations have increasingly changed throughout the past decades, and European gender politics have accompanied these improvements. Still Europe is far from being a gender-equal society. For a long period, gender equality policies have been contextualised mainly as a “women’s issue” – as women have been the driving force behind gender equality strategies and have been seen as the only ones who benefit from a more equal society. Men as the “other gender” have been taken less into account in the context of gender equality.
European Commission

Occupational Segregation
The labour market continues to be characterized by phenomena of horizontal and vertical segregation, reflecting major areas of inequality between men and women, particularly in access to jobs, correspondence of qualification levels, job quality, career progression, pay and experience of discrimination and harassment. There is still over-representation of women in some sectors such as part time work, less skilled jobs, atypical and/or temporary contracts, and under-representation in others, like in the science, engineering and technology sectors.
European Commission

Gender Based Discrimination in the Labour Market
Gender based discrimination in the labour market persists. Women continue to share the higher proportion of atypical and precarious jobs, register lower employment rates than men and experience discrimination in vocational training and career progression.
European Commission

Women’s Entrepreneurship
In the last decade, women have demonstrated more dynamism and autonomy as self-employed and independent professionals, as shown by the low but increased number of enterprises run by women and women’s entrepreneurship. However, women still face many difficulties in the support of new businesses through their early years.
European Commission

Poverty and Social Exclusion
Women are still more likely to undertake caring and home responsibilities and, therefore, are likely to have shorter careers or interrupted periods of work when compared to their male counterparts. This may render them more vulnerable than men to poverty. There are a number of contributory factors which can include women’s unequal position in the labour market, their dependency status in social protection systems and limited pensions.
European Commission

Over the current economic crisis in Europe, there has been a levelling down of gender gaps in employment, unemployment, wages and poverty. This, however, does not reflect progress in gender equality, as it is based on lower rates of employment, higher rates of unemployment and reduced earnings for both men and women. Labour market segregation has effectively sheltered women’s employment, while men experienced comparatively higher employment losses than women in countries where segregation is greater.
European Commission

Men’s Involvement in Gender Equality
Equality between men and women is a fundamental principle of the European Union, which has a long tradition of support for measures to promote gender equality. In recent years, the role of men in this work has received growing attention, both at European level and within the Member States. The European Commission’s “Strategy for Equality Between Women and Men 2010/2015”, for example, states that “gender equality needs the active contribution, support and participation of men”.
Taylor & Francis Online

A Dual Approach
The European Commission follows the dual approach by both implementing gender mainstreaming and initiating specific measures. Gender mainstreaming is the integration of a gender equality perspective into every stage of policy process - design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation - with a view to promoting equality between women and men. As part of the process, statistics, indicators and benchmarks are used to monitor progress in implementing the gender dimension in different policy fields, from employment to health, or from research to education.

In addition to the gender mainstreaming approach, the EU has used a wide variety of specific measures, such as legislation, awareness-raising campaigns or financial programmes. The aim of these measures is to tackle specific problems such as the gender pay gap or the persistent underrepresentation of women, particularly in the field of employment.
European Commission

European Employment Strategy (EES)
Equal opportunities constitutes the fourth pillar of the European Employment Strategy (EES), following on from the EU’s extensive experience of promoting equal opportunities for women and men, as embodied by EU’s ‘mainstreaming’ policy: “In all its activities, the Union shall aim to eliminate inequalities, and to promote equality, between men and women.”
Eurofound

According to the European Commission, only 13.7% of board members at large, listed European companies were women in 2011, a slight improvement on the 11.8% in 2010, but well below the organization's 40% target. Nordic countries boast the best numbers, with women now filling one quarter of executive positions on average, while southern Europe fares much worse. In Italy and Portugal, only 6% of executives are women.
Time World

European women are still earning less than European men for the same job. Precisely 16.2 percent less, according to the latest figures published by the European Commission in February 2013. That would mean women would have to work an extra 59 days per year to match the pay of their male counterparts.
Euronews

According to the Gender Equality Index, released in June 2013 by the European Institute for Gender Equality, the EU is only halfway towards a gender-equal society. The index consists of six core domains-work, money, knowledge, time, power and health. Thus, the overall EU score was measured to be 54. The score of the 27 member states in the separate domains is respectively: work - 69, money - 68.9, knowledge - 48.9, time - 38.8; power - 38 and health - 90.1.

According to the index, the states with the most serious gender equality gaps are Romania (score 35.5) and Bulgaria (score 37). On the other side of the coin are Sweden (74.3), Finland (73.4) and Denmark (73.6).
New Europe

Since April 2012, a partnership between the EU and UN Women is in place, aiming at strengthening the cooperation between the two organizations regarding their work on empowering women and gender equality around the world, by sharing information, expertise and analysis in order to effectively advance women’s rights. The cooperation focuses primarily on ensuring women’s representation in decision-making in the fields of economics, politics and justice worldwide, as well as better access for women to work and social opportunities.
United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women

28 February 2013 is the third European Equal Pay Day
The European Equal Pay Day is an initiative by the European Commission aiming at highlighting good practices by companies in Europe. The third edition stressed the fact that the gender pay gap represents 59 free working days for women. The persistent pay gaps have long term consequences on women’s life, such as diminishing their economic independence.
European Women’s Lobby