Introduction. More Women at Work in Europe

Abstract

Abstract This volume is about gender gaps in employment and wages, participation of women in the labor market, fertility and the welfare of children. It discusses how the trend towards the greater participation of women in labor markets interacts with gender differences in pay. It dwells on the scope for further increasing the number of women in the labor force in Europe without negatively affecting the cognitive development of children and, more generally, their early childhood experience. The policy relevance of the findings in this volume is self-evident: the Heads of Governments of the EU agreed five years ago, at the Spring 2000 Lisbon meeting of the European Council, to accelerate the trend towards the greater participation of women in the labor force. But the means of achieving this target, and the trade-offs involved when more women are pushed into paid employment by policy measures were not discussed, either in Lisbon or in the subsequent Spring European Councils.