Gleichstellungspolitik in der Schweiz: Einführung in ein umstrittenes PolitikfeldFuchs, GesineOpladen, Verlag Barbara Budrich (2019), 263 p., ISBN 978‐3‐8474‐0

The European Union (EU) has been characterized as a “gender regime” with its distinctive patterns of gender (in)equalities and path dependencies. Gender equality policies have developed as a genuine policy field over the past decades from a single treaty article to a comprehensive legal and political framework dealing with multiple sources of discrimination. Besides, gender equality policies are frequently linked to other political projects and policy goals. Gender equality is often presented as a foundational value of the EU with reference to the Treaties of Amsterdam and Lisbon. Research has pointed out that it is an important aspect of the foundational myth of the EU. The development of gender equality policies has been characterized by alternations between progress and stagnation. These policies are also met by resistance. However, a general conclusion is that EU institutions have been important catalysts in shaping women’s economic, political, and social equality in Europe and in putting equality rights into effect. Historical, political, and sociological interpretations of the EU’s gender equality policies illustrate these dynamics. Gender equality policies are described in terms of the following phases: the 1970s (associated with women’s civil and economic rights and equal treatment), the 1980s (equal opportunities, positive action), and the 1990s (gender mainstreaming in the whole union and for all policy areas). Since the 2000s, a fourth phase of new policies against multiple discrimination has been developing. These different stages of EU gender policy continue to coexist. When the Treaty of Amsterdam entered into force in 1999, the EU committed to a new approach to work for gender equality through mainstreaming. Gender equality and nondiscrimination became guiding legal principles of the union. The Treaty of Lisbon reflects core vaues of the EU such as democracy, human rights and gender equality. One can approach gender equality policies as situated between concerns for gender equality and multiple discrimination on the one hand and priorities of economy and finance on the other. Critical voices in the literature have pointed out that these priorities have outperformed ideas about gender equality. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, EU austerity policies represent a “critical juncture” that could undo the long-term progress achieved in gender equality in Europe. Besides, gender equality policies suffer from a gap between institutionalization on the one hand and a lack of consistency and full political commitment on the other. In a context of a more permanent crisis scenario in the EU, gender equality policies are undergoing transformations and they are subject to change to the worse. A key point is that dynamic gender relations, multiple discrimination, and women’s various roles in society matter for understanding the EU and European integration. This raises questions about the EU’s role as a driving force for gender equality and against multiple discrimination. What happened to gender equality policies and to gendered effects of other policies as a result of the various crises in the EU?

Strategies to improve women's participation in politics and to promote their full citizenship not only focus on the physical presence of women on the political scene, but also address the achievement of gender equality through public policies. Public policies can indeed help women to overcome barriers to their entry in the political sphere, but they are especially targeted at achieving gender equality in society at large. For a long time, gender equality policies were limited to ensuring equal treatment of both sexes in legislation. Later on, they developed into what are often called specific gender equality policies. While the former approach was meant to correct existing discrimination (in legislation) and to make citizens formally equal, the latter recognised that equal rights do not necessarily mean equal opportunities or even equal outcome, because of the structurally different starting positions individuals face in everyday life. Specific measures, such as positive action, were introduced to mitigate structural, though not legal, inequality and to promote equality (Nelen and Hondeghem, 2000). Since the fourth UN women's conference held in Beijing in 1995, gender equality policies have increasingly been reoriented towards a broader and more structural approach of gender inequalities, with countries like the Netherlands being precursors in this field. Next to specific or targeted gender equality policies, other public policy areas are also meant to promote gender equality, not the least by recognising how previous and current policies contain biases (re)producing gender inequality and how these can be overcome. Gender mainstreaming is in sum meant to gender the mainstream public policies.

Lyčių lygybė yra siejama su lygių galimybių užtikrinimu moterims ir vyrams veikti viešojo ir privataus gyvenimo sferose. Istoriškai susiklostęs stereotipinis mąstymas ir patriarchalinės nuostatos lėmė tai, kad visuomenėje vis dar pastebima diskriminacijos apraiškų lyčių pagrindu: moterų ir vyrų atlyginimų disproporcija, nelygios galimybės įsidarbinant, retesnis moterų dalyvavimas priimant sprendimus. Lyčių lygybės problemos yra ne tik nacionalinių valstybių politinėje darbotvarkėje, bet plačiai akcentuojamos ir Europos Sąjungoje (ES), o lyčių aspekto integravimas yra vienas pagrindinių „Europa 2020“ strategijos tikslų. Lyčių balansui pasiekti įvairiose gyvenimo srityse reikia užtikrinti moterų ir vyrų lygias galimybes ne tik de jure, bet ir de facto. Lietuvoje vis daugiau dėmesio skiriama lyčių lygybės politikai, tačiau pasie­kimai šioje srityje yra vidutiniški. Skandinavijos valstybėse lyčių lygybės politikos įgyvendinimas vyksta sklandžiai – tai turėtų tapti pavyzdžiu kitoms valstybėms. Nors vyrų ir moterų lygias galimybes Lietuvoje įtvirtinta įstatymai, o institucijos lyčių lygybės klausimams skiria vis daugiau dėmesio, tačiau lyčių lygy­bės politikos įgyvendinimas Lietuvoje nėra toks sėkmingas kaip Švedijoje. Todėl straipsnio tikslas – pa­lyginti Lietuvos ir Švedijos lyčių lygybės politikos įgyvendinimo panašumus ir skirtumus, atskleisti lyčių lygybės politikos raidą abiejose šalyse. Straipsnyje nagrinėjamas Lietuvos ir Švedijos lyčių lygybės poli­tikos įgyvendinimas ir lyginami šalių lyčių lygybės politikos ypatumai. Švedija lyginamajame kontekste pasirinkta kaip gerosios praktikos pavyzdys Lietuvai. Švedijos ir Lietuvos lyčių lygybės politikos lyginimas padėjo atrasti lyčių lygybės politiką reglamentuojančių įstatymų ir juos įgyvendinančių institucijų pana­šumus ir skirtumus bei išryškinti moterų ir vyrų proporcijas valdžioje. Atlikus lyginamąją analizę pateikia­mos įžvalgos dėl priežasčių, lėmusių lyčių lygybės politikos raidą abiejose šalyse. Nors Lietuva atsižvelgia į ES lyčių lygybės politikos standartus, o teisinis lygių galimybių reglamentavimas yra panašus kaip ir Švedijoje, tačiau vis dar yra pastebimas atotrūkis tarp formalios ir realios lyčių lygybės.

This study was conducted in Rwanda with the main purpose of examining the contributions of Rwanda’s gender equality policies to women’s empowerment. This research solely employed secondary data to analyse the effects of gender equality policies on the empowerment of women in Rwanda. To gather information, many books, journals, newspapers, and other research publications on gender and women’s empowerment were examined. This study discovered a significant link between gender equality and women’s empowerment in the study area. Gender equality policies, for example, increased the number of women who went to school, increased labour force participation, reduced maternal health risks, raised the national GDP, and promoted human rights. Furthermore, to attain gender equality and increase women’s empowerment, the government has adopted numerous policies that have played a significant role in achieving gender equality. Among these initiatives are the formation of the Gender Monitoring Office, the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, the National Women’s Council, and a council for women who are in parliament. Furthermore, the government has implemented various legal instruments to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. They are associated with inheritance, employment, human resources development, human rights, and other spheres of society. Yet, the women in Rwanda have some encounters for full participation in development as well as achieving gender equality, like society norms about gender equality and family violence. For those challenges, the authors would like to recommend that the government increase the mobilisation of citizens about the contribution of women’s empowerment and gender equality to sustainable growth, increase the budget for girls’ education, and enact new laws for gender-based violence and women’s empowerment promotion.

The economic study towards gender equality has a long history. Traditionally, people believe that higher equality between female and male employees under the same business lead to more harmonious and efficient surroundings; consequently, all workers will be encouraged to contribute and promote the firm’s growth greatly. To examine this statement, this paper empirically studies the correlation between gender equality, productivity, and employment. To be specific, we study whether gender equality in the workplace can effectively promote manufacturing productivity growth, and how this growth is affected by the firms’ employees and sizes. We looked into the Chilean manufacturing firms from 2001 to 2007; the data come from National Annual Industrial Survey conducted the National Statistics Institute of Chile. In order to avoid potential endogeneity and simultaneity, we used a semi-parametric method to estimate productivity. We consider four types of employees: executives and specialized production workers, identified as high-skill employees; and administrative staff and auxiliary production workers, as low-skill employees. Our statistical analysis as well as many other literatures shows that in Chile, severe gender inequality still exists nowadays. For example, the majority of the observed employees (80%) are male. We then study gender equality through two measures at the same time: female labor-force participation rate, and gender equivalence as how the female participation rate deviates from 0.5. We conduct simultaneous regression to estimate the influence exerted on firms’ productivity by these two measures among each of the four types of employees – executives, specialized workers, administrative staff, and auxiliary workers. Our findings are mixed and very interesting. Among those small firms with less than 50 employees, higher female labor-force participation among high-skill employees significantly increases a firms’ productivity. For larger firms with more than 50 employees, only better gender equality among the low-skill employees improves productivity. Therefore, a more equalized distributed workforce between female and male workers does significantly lead to faster productivity growth, but it depends on the size of the firm and specific types of employees. Therefore indeed, we can effectively promote the growth of a firm through different gender equality policies such as balancing welfare treatment between males and females, or publicizing our efforts to the society; but we also need to count both the firm’s size and the types of employees into consideration. Our findings also provide insights into a firm’s growth pattern. High-skill employees are the leading force of small firms, while big firms consistently reply on all the ordinary-level employees.

This article offers a critical analysis of Irish Aid s treatment of gender equality and gender mainstreaming. Informed by key concepts in policy process and feminist scholarship, it examines the evidence of Irish Aid s progress in this area. The author finds that gender equality has low salience in Irish Aid and a record of weak implementation. It is argued that while the adoption of a Gender Equality Policy in Irish Aid reflects global policy diffusion, Ireland s rhetorical endorsement of gender equality in international affairs stems chiefly from an instrumental interest in the reputational gains it can offer and represents a form of soft coercion rather than a principled interest in achieving gender equality. The weakness of state feminism in Ireland and the weak links between officials and women s movement actors are also factors. Further, while the disadvantage of low salience can be offset by the presence of effective policy entrepreneurs using discretionary power to augment resources, this is not evident in Irish Aid in the case of the Gender Equality Policy. Furthermore, the rising paradigm of managing for development results poses new challenges to rights-based approaches to development, including gender mainstreaming. For these reasons, the Gender Equality Policy in Irish Aid is at risk of continued dilution and perhaps disappearance.

This article offers a critical analysis of Irish Aid's treatment of gender equality and gender mainstreaming. Informed by key concepts in policy process and feminist scholarship, it examines the evidence of Irish Aid's progress in this area. The author finds that gender equality has low salience in Irish Aid and a record of weak implementation. It is argued that while the adoption of a gender equality policy in Irish Aid reflects global policy diffusion, Ireland's rhetorical endorsement of gender equality in international affairs stems chiefly from an instrumental interest in the reputational gains it can offer and is indicative of the exercise of 'soft coercion' rather than of a principled interest in achieving gender equality. The weakness of state feminism in Ireland and the weak links between officials and women's movement actors are also factors. Further, while the disadvantage of low salience can be offset by the presence of effective 'policy entrepreneurs' using discretionary power to augment resources, this is not evident in Irish Aid in the case of the gender equality policy. Furthermore, the rising paradigm of 'managing for development results' poses new challenges to rights-based approaches to development, including gender mainstreaming. For these reasons, the gender equality policy in Irish Aid is at risk of continued dilution and perhaps disappearance.

This article offers a critical analysis of Irish Aid's treatment of gender equality and gender mainstreaming. Informed by key concepts in policy process and feminist scholarship, it examines the evidence of Irish Aid's progress in this area. The author finds that gender equality has low salience in Irish Aid and a record of weak implementation. It is argued that while the adoption of a gender equality policy in Irish Aid reflects global policy diffusion, Ireland's rhetorical endorsement of gender equality in international affairs stems chiefly from an instrumental interest in the reputational gains it can offer and is indicative of the exercise of 'soft coercion' rather than of a principled interest in achieving gender equality. The weakness of state feminism in Ireland and the weak links between officials and women's movement actors are also factors. Further, while the disadvantage of low salience can be offset by the presence of effective 'policy entrepreneurs' using discretionary power to augment resources, this is not evident in Irish Aid in the case of the gender equality policy. Furthermore, the rising paradigm of 'managing for development results' poses new challenges to rights-based approaches to development, including gender mainstreaming. For these reasons, the gender equality policy in Irish Aid is at risk of continued dilution and perhaps disappearance.

Women’s NGOs are key players in the struggle to gain gender equality around the world. Motivated by a concern about the lack of progress in achieving gender equality on a global scale, the purpose of the study was to investigate the agendas and conceptualizations of women’s NGOs for gaining gender equality, and to find out to what extent they identified with feminist strategies for social change. This paper is focused on the intersection of how women’s NGOs conceptualise and deliver action towards gender equality and why gender inequality is still a major global social problem. The key mechanism for inquiry in this paper is the interrogation of how the concept of ‘empowerment’ in contemporary gender equality policies and programs, which are largely carried out by women’s NGOs, has emerged as a possible counter force to achieving gender equality. Given that ‘empowerment’ frames contemporary gender equality policy at all levels of governance (local, national and global), the study explored its impact on the progress of achieving gender equality from the women’s NGO perspective. The survey data revealed tensions between the wide range of feminist agendas of the NGOs and the limitations of the current empowerment paradigm. These tensions are between predominantly individualised empowerment processes and the much broader structural and other feminist objectives of how the NGOs understood gender equality as a concept and about how it could be achieved in practice.

In the context of European integration processes, Ukraine faces the necessity of implementing international standards to ensuring gender equality. The urgent task is the harmonization of national legislation and policy with European standards in the area of equal opportunities for women and men. For effective monitoring of progress in this area, the application of modern European tools for assessing and analyzing gender equality is necessary, which will facilitate the integration of European principles into national policy. This article aims to highlight the results of adapting the European methodology for calculating the Gender Equality Index in Ukraine. This index is a key tool for comprehensive analysis of gender equality in the European Union’s 27 member states. The Gender Equality Index is a comprehensive indicator that measures progress toward achieving gender equality in various social areas, including six key domains of gender equality policy: work, money, knowledge, time, power, and health. The Gender Equality Index (GEI) was developed by the European Institute for Gender Equality in 2013. Thanks to the efforts of the Ukrainian Women’s Fund, in cooperation with the State Statistics Service of Ukraine and with advisory support from experts of the European Institute for Gender Equality, implementation of methodological approaches to its development in Ukraine became possible.The article presents the metho dol ogy for calculating the Gender Equality Index in Ukraine, based on the European experience of constructing this index. The components of the GEI are reviewed, and the principles of the GEI’s construction are detailed. Considerable attention is given to forming information support for calculating the Index in Ukraine. The results of the Index calculation in Ukraine are analyzed, and a comparative analysis is carried out with the average European Index estimates and the Index of EU member states. Despite the limitations of data collection in Ukraine during martial law and the absence of direct correspondences to certain indicators in European statistics, the expert team successfully collected data and calculated the values of 30 out of 31 Index indicators using only one proxy indicator. The Ukrainian Index is based on the same methodology as the European Index, ensuring comparability with EU member states. The calculations show that in 2023, the Gender Equality Index in Ukraine was 61.4 points. This is 8.8 points lower than the average for the 27 EU member states. In fact, this means that European standards and values in the field of gender equality are similar to those of women and men in Ukraine. Monitoring the values of the Index and its components is expected to provide a basis for assessing the state and dynamics of gender equality in Ukraine. This will allow for adequate comparison of Ukraine with EU member states in terms of gender equality achievements. It will also strengthen interregional cooperation and give impetus to the development of Ukraine’s capacity in gender statistics and gender equality policy evaluation.

Understanding women’s roles, experiences and barriers to participation in ocean science education in Kenya: recommendations for better gender equality policy

PurposeThe benefits of gender diversity in the workplace are well-established. Consequently, many organizations have policies or programs in place to encourage hiring women. Despite this, the gender gap remains, particularly in terms of compensation and promotion and progress appears slow. This paper aims to examine the benefits of gender diversity and common approaches to enhance it. It then reviews lessons from global research and suggests applications.Design/methodology/approachThis practitioner study reviews the literature to identify arguments for gender equality in the workplace, progress in gender equality and common organizational approaches to equality. It presents snapshots of two global studies examining gender equality. It draws implications and applications from these studies.FindingsGender equality remains elusive and difficult to achieve despite efforts on the part of leaders to encourage it. Insights from research provide compelling reasons in terms of organizational outcomes for female hiring, development and promotion. Additionally, insights into organizational culture help leaders identify barriers to gender equality.Originality/valueThis paper presents insights into the need for and benefits of gender equality in organizations. A review of two global studies provides compelling reasons for leaders to recommit themselves to their gender equality and address needed changes in organizational culture.

This chapter looks at the recent historical background of Japan’s gender equality initiatives, in order to understand the evolution of policy development which lacks a human rights-based approach. It analyses the following issues as examples of the progress and retro-progress of women’s issues: women’s representation in politics and in the workplace, social systems that impede women’s advancement in employment, violence against women and girls, and sexual and reproductive health and rights. The chapter explores recommending putting more focus on women’s rights in implementing Japan’s women’s empowerment and gender equality policies. Despite the Government’s efforts towards greater gender equality and the Prime Minister’s new initiative towards women’s economic empowerment, much work remains to be done in achieving gender equality in Japanese society. The enthusiasm around gender equality culminated in Japan setting a trend for gender equality policies, beginning in 1996. Japan still has a long way to go to catch up with other countries’ progress on gender equality.

Although we have witnessed significant progress in achieving gender equality in the workplace over the past century, and especially in recent decades, the need to eliminate gender disparities in the world of work undoubtedly still exists. This paper examines gender equality from the perspective of the International Labour Organization (ILO). It analyzes gender equality policy measures in the field of labour and international labour standards in this area. The research shows that the ILO implements an active policy aimed at achieving gender equality at work, equal treatment, and equal opportunities for all. Some of the policy measures focus on promoting gender equality and decent work, reducing the gender pay gap, decreasing workplace violence and harassment, etc. This policy is supported by legislation in the form of international labour standards aimed at preventing harassment and violence at work, protecting maternity, safeguarding employees with family obligations, and similar protections.

Building feminist alliances has always been an important feature of supranational European Union (EU) gender equality policy and politics. Historically, a so-called ‘velvet triangle’ consisting of feminist actors inside and outside of EU institutions committed to promoting gender equality has been the most tangible and best-researched network. Overall, feminist and women’s movements have played a major role in shaping the relationships between EU institutions and civil society and equally the content of EU gender equality politics and policies. The chapter provides an overview of: first, the history and formal rules of EU-civil society relationships; second, crucial changes to supranational alliances in gender equality; and third, current challenges to gender equality alliances in EU governance.