Abstract
This article examines the development of the EU's gender equality framework of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ law, including the incomplete gender mainstreaming of the European Employment Strategy. It highlights contradictions, rooted in political tensions between the social democratic principles which underpin the European Social Model, and the promotion of neo-liberal economic policies. It assesses the UK's role in shaping this European framework, and the framework's impact on the UK's employment policy. It concludes that Brexit will harm the pursuit of gender equality in the UK due to decoupling from the EU's equality framework and policy pathway. An additional risk is greater insularity in UK policy making through reduced exposure to the Open Method of Coordination. Brexit may, however, help progress gender equality in the rest of the EU if the outcome is greater unity focussed on an inclusive employment policy without the UK dragging its heels in favour of deregulated flexibility.
Highlights
The European Union (EU) has played a major role in putting gender equality on the policy-making agendas across Europe and in normalising the inclusion of gender equality principles in policy discussions within the framework of the European Employment Strategy (EES) and the Social Inclusion Process (SIP)
Our analysis highlights the contradictions and tensions that have emerged from the incomplete gender mainstreaming of European employment policy and the scope for gender equality objectives to be co-opted and subordinated for particular employment and political objectives (Stratigaki, 2004). This reflects the political struggles in the European arena between the pursuit of the social democratic principles underpinning the ‘European Social Model’ and the promotion of neo-liberal economic policies (Wickham, 2005)
Likewise policies directed at lone parents were restricted to a focus on their employment integration and ‘making work pay’ in both the EES and the subsequent launch of the Social Inclusion Process (Fagan et al, 2006a), without a broader consideration of the limits of a gender equality policy model premised upon a dual-earner couple or of the responsibilities of non-resident fathers
Summary
The EU has played a major role in putting gender equality on the policy-making agendas across Europe and in normalising the inclusion of gender equality principles in policy discussions within the framework of the European Employment Strategy (EES) and the Social Inclusion Process (SIP). There are three elements to the EU’s gender equality policy: the gender equality regulatory framework (hard law), the gender mainstreaming of both policy formation (guidelines and policy processes) and funding policies (European social funds), and the sustained cycle of national benchmarking and policy scrutiny through the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) This body of gender equality measures, summarised, has emerged through multiple mechanisms promoted by policymakers with often divergent interests and objectives (Lewis, 2006). Instrumental policies may lead to potential mutual benefits, for example increasing gender equality in access to employment to secure the overall goal of raising Europe’s employment rate This tension between instrumental and equality objectives takes on particular importance in a context where the EU’s dominant policy agenda is neoliberal in form, with the consequence that gender equality objectives have been used to legitimate policy objectives with questionable benefits for progressing gender equality, such as certain forms of flexible labour markets
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