European Union Gender Equality Research Articles

Populist political masculinities, gender equality, and norm contestation in Armenia and Georgia

ABSTRACT Over the past two decades, the literature on norm diffusion in the post-Soviet space has grown dramatically. Increasingly, scholars have stressed the role of geopolitical competition between powerful international actors, notably Russia and the European Union (EU), in achieving and/or resisting liberal-democratic reform in the region. This article contributes to this recent research by adding a corrective to the literature, exploring the agency of local rather than external actors in the contestation of global gender equality norms through the high-value cases of Armenia and Georgia. By uncovering taken-for-granted gendered power dimensions in local norm contestation – a subject barely addressed in the norm diffusion literature – the article offers an explanation for the persistence of non-democratic trends in the post-Soviet space as a whole. Specifically, the article examines populist political masculinities contesting EU gender equality policies and related norms concerning violence against women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) rights, arguing that in Armenia and Georgia, it is local populist actors, using taken-for-granted patriarchal and heterosexual discourses to reclaim local masculinities and their political legitimacy, who represent a major challenge to gender equality norms.

Five angry men: advocating for and mobilizing EU gender equality law to advance men's rights

AbstractThis article analyses the impact of a men's rights organization involved in political lobbying and legal mobilization around gender equality issues at the European level since 1986. Drawing on the as‐yet unexplored archival materials of the Campaign for Equal State Pension Ages (CESPA), an organization that had a membership of about 1,200 individuals in the 1990s and later rebranded itself as PARITY, the article explores the meaning of European Union gender equality advocacy and mobilization by and for an organization initially composed exclusively of men based in the United Kingdom. It argues that anti‐discrimination law was successively used as a strategic tool by this organization to further class equality and as a potentially anti‐feminist instrument to defend men's rights.

Locating pitfalls in the EU gender equality policy

While the project of the European Union (EU) incorporated gender equality as one of its foundational objectives and its institutions have been mandated to integrate gender equality into all of their policy areas, the EU has fallen short of materializing these objectives. Gender inequality at the EU level is perpetuated through a process in which the EU, as a structure anchored in economic considerations, interfaces with androcentric institutions and member states. This substantially determines the policy instruments, tools and mechanisms within and outside its periphery, rendering ‘gender’ to be co-opted, secondary and subdued policy areas. While the discourse on gender equality policy has evolved through ‘equal opportunity’, ‘positive action’ and ‘gender mainstreaming’ approaches, the policies mostly focus on auxiliary benefits such as maternity leave, childcare services and part-time work, aiming to assist women in reconciling their work and life situations. These benefits do not substantially transform conventional gender roles within the family or at the social-economic and political levels, which to a large extent perpetuate gender inequality at large. This article analyses the trajectory of gender equality policy at the EU, the inherent factors and processes that constantly define and determine it and how it implicates the larger EU policy discourse. Using a feminist standpoint, the article explores the extent to which the new female leadership in the EU has prioritized and problematized gender equality with corresponding initiatives and actions, and the major challenges it may face in contemporary times in order to meet its objectives. To this end, some existing labour market and family policies are taken up as case studies. Various EU policy documents, key EIGE reports, press releases and other existing literature have been used as reference points for the analysis.

Gender Mainstreaming the European Union Energy Transition

This paper explores gender dimensions of the energy transition in the European Union (EU). The EU has set out its ambitions for an equitable transition to clean secure energy. It has also set out it objectives for gender equality. In this paper, I implement a systematic literature review to explore the intersection of gender issues with the energy transition in the EU. There is little peer reviewed literature in this area. Analysis of academic papers shows most focus on social science rather than technical or engineering problems. A critical review of the grey literature including EU policies and reports shows that there is a disconnect between EU gender equality and clean energy plans and that gender has yet to be mainstreamed into the EU energy transition. This review identifies opportunities to mainstream gender into EU energy policies by linking to EU gender equality objectives, and connecting to gender-energy research themes.

The effect of female presence on corporate boards of directors on the value relevance of accounting amounts: empirical evidence from the European Union

AbstractThis paper investigates the ability of female presence to affect value relevance. Focusing on a sample of 487 entities listed in 18 European countries over the period 2009–2017, it uses a price model to assess the ability of female presence to affect the value relevance of earnings and book value disclosed in the consolidated annual reports of the firms analyzed. Findings offer evidence that female presence on corporate boards increases the value relevance of accounting amounts, providing insights that board composition affects investors’ judgments. Taking into account that in the literature scholars have shown that female presence is associated with market prices, this paper provides a contribution, showing its ability to affect the value relevance of earnings and book value of equity. The research findings suggest that not only the quality of accounting standards but also other factors such as female presence on the corporate board of directors affect accounting practices and, in turn, the quality of financial reporting and value relevance. Its findings offer an additional support to the European Union Gender Equality Strategy 2020–2025 according to which an increase in women's participation in the labor market has a strong, positive impact on the whole economy.

Beyond methodological nationalism in explanations of gender equality: The impact of EU policies on gender provisions in national collective agreements in Belgium (1957–2020)

Based on an analysis of gender equality provisions in national collective agreements, this article investigates the influence of European Union (EU) gender and macro-economic policy on gender equality outcomes in Belgium since the signature of the Treaty of Rome in 1957. We show that, over time, EU gender equality policies have led to the adoption of provisions promoting formal gender equality and the integration of women in the labour market. At the same time, EU macro-economic policies have stimulated labour flexibility, promoting part-time work largely filled by women, and imposed wage moderation, which has fundamentally hampered the correction of historical indirect gender discrimination in wages. Overall, EU policies have stimulated the transformation of the conservative male breadwinner model of this coordinated market economy (CME) into a gendered ‘one-and-a-half earner’ model, a transformation partially enforced through the increased interference of the state transposing EU policies. Our study advances the current literature by pointing to the limitations of prevalent methodologically nationalist explanations of gender equality outcomes in CMEs. More specifically, it shows that the gender equality provisions of national collective bargaining agreements in CMEs cannot be understood independent of EU gender and macro-economic policies.

Economization of Expert Knowledge about Gender Equality in the European Union

Abstract The article analyzes (i) how the increasing demand for empirical evidence about the economic impacts of gender equality transforms expert knowledge about gender equality in the European Union (EU) and (ii) the implications of these transformations. The article argues that the much-debated discursive economization of gender equality in the EU context is underpinned by the economization of expert knowledge about gender equality—the increasing reliance on mainstream economics to support gender equality claims. This has increased the influence of gender-biased economics knowledge and its modes of knowledge production in EU gender equality policy.

How the Criteria for Joining the European Union Affect Public Opinion: The Case of Equal Pay between Women and Men in Bosnia and Herzegovina

AbstractExisting studies suggest that normative commitments to the European Union's gender equality standards remain weak in states applying for EU membership, and that citizens are unresponsive to information the EU provides. However, these studies do not gauge public support for women's rights when they are addressed as an EU issue (an EU frame). In an original experimental survey of Bosnia and Herzegovina, I examine the effect of EU framing on support for equal pay between women and men, and the responsibility assigned to the government for unequal pay. I find that EU frames affect the responsibility assigned to the government. Supporters of independence from the EU assign less responsibility to their government for unequal pay, when equal pay is addressed as an EU issue.

The Struggle of Benchmarking and Ranking Gender Equality: The Case of the European Institute for Gender Equality

Abstract The aim of this article is to explore the conceptualisation of benchmarking, ranking and good practice sharing tools within European Union gender equality policymaking. In the first part, the article looks at these soft law measures applied within intergovernmental cooperation. Stemming from the extensive body of literature, the study approaches these measures as a form of scientific knowledge, which is diversely applied within policymaking. Next, the article directs various points of criticism at these policymaking tools through different variables that may hinder knowledge use. The second section of this article further focuses on the Open Method of Coordination and the role of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) in relation to gender equality policies. The empirical part of this article is focused on the criticism of EIGE’s External Evaluation Report and the different conceptualisations of scientific knowledge use which are presented within this audit document. As such, this article aims to contribute to a new conceptualisation of the technocratic tools of benchmarking, ranking and good practice sharing within the highly ideological area of gender equality policies.

‘Black Boxes’ and ‘fracture points’: the regulation of gender equality in the UK and French construction industries

Gender equality was a founding principle of the European Union (EU) and has remained on its policy agenda ever since, yet delivery of policy goals has been uneven across countries and economic sectors. We draw on theoretical and empirical literatures from human resource management and policy science to explore EU gender equality initiatives and their enactment within one sector which has seen virtually no improvements in gender-based employment equality: construction. To help understand the possible reasons for this, we compare practice and experiences in two countries; the UK and France. In both, the construction industry remains resolutely male-dominated, with women employed primarily in support and administrative roles. We deploy the concept of Europeanisation, to provide an analytical framework to understand the potential gaps between policy goals and on-the-ground implementation, whilst a comparative approach allows us to see if different national approaches to EU policy implementation can help explain these policy failures. We identify three potential ‘fracture points’ where breaks in policy transmission and enactment may occur: between the EU and national levels; between the national and industry levels; and within the industry itself. We identify areas for further research, where unpacking the ‘Black Boxes’ of policy development and industry practices, can help more effective policy-targeting to deliver policy goals on gender equality.

Women in the neighbourhood: Reinstating the European Union’s civilising mission on the back of gender equality promotion?

The European Union has launched its New European Neighbourhood Policy as a reaction to a ‘changing neighbourhood’. A key novelty in the New European Neighbourhood Policy is the special role attributed to gender equality promotion as an important ingredient of Europeanisation. The literature has so far focused on assessing whether and to what extent neighbourhood countries adopt and implement European Union gender equality norms. Bringing together the feminist and postcolonial literature on gender equality promotion and European identity formation, this article resituates the New European Neighbourhood Policy within the broader debate regarding processes of European identity formation and Europe’s relations with Others. We combine the concept of delineating gendered and racialised coding with the concept of contrapuntal reading to analyse key official European Union documents alongside the voices expressing themselves through new (social) media. This allows us to highlight silences and exclusions within New European Neighbourhood Policy narratives, to resituate these narratives in their historical context, and to render visible the diversity of competing and interrelated narratives related to gender equality promotion. We read the recent focus on gender equality promotion in the New European Neighbourhood Policy as an expression of the ambivalence of European Union identity building: at a moment when neighbouring countries move closer to Europe, either adopting the acquis communautaire or going through democratisation processes, they are placed at a spatial and temporal distance outside Europe. Our analysis highlights the persistence of colonial practices of Othering and hierarchical Self–Other definitions that are reproduced through current New European Neighbourhood Policy policies. Yet, we suggest that this moment might also present an opportunity to render visible and take seriously the co-constitutive relationship between the European Union and its Others, which could point to alternative forms of interaction and identity building.

The Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality in the European Parliament: Taking Advantage of Institutional Power Play

The European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM Committee) is a core actor within the European Union's gender equality policy machinery. Its capacity to act, though, is shaped by the institutional setting within the European Parliament (EP). Using a qualitative approach, this article shows how this particular committee exploits parliamentary rules and routines to maximise its influence. Existing scholarship has suggested that the voluntary nature of its membership implies a weak position within the EP. However, there is evidence to support a contrary interpretation that its voluntary membership assures institutional persistence, thematic inclusion, organisational attention and networked integration.

The economic case for gender equality in the European Union: Selling gender equality to decision-makers and neoliberalism to women’s organizations

Scholarship on gender and the European Union (EU) has consistently pointed out that EU gender equality policies have always been embedded in the logic of the market and that the economic framing has had negative impacts on the content and concepts of these policies. This article provides novel insights into this discussion by combining a discursive approach focused on framings with insights of feminist economists and examining how the relationship between gender equality and the economy has been conceptualized in EU policy documents from the 1980s up until the present day. The article identifies the key actors and processes behind the escalation of economic arguments for gender equality and makes visible the economic assumptions that underpin EU gender equality policy. It argues that in recent years the European institutions have intentionally developed and propagated a market-oriented gender equality discourse, the economic case for gender equality, which highlights the macroeconomic benefits of gender equality. The economic case reaffirms the gender-biased assumptions of neoclassical economic theory and legitimizes the EU’s current economic priorities and policies, many of which are detrimental to gender equality. The European Commission represents the argument that gender equality contributes to economic growth as an innovative way to promote gender equality. However, the economic case represents a risk for gender equality advocates, because it may tame the emerging feminist criticism of the EU’s economic policies and governance.

Gender Equality as Biopolitical Governmentality in a Neoliberal European Union

This article argues that European Union (EU) gender equality policy operates as a technology of biopolitical and neoliberal governmentality. Through a genealogical examination of EU policy documents and relevant demographic research, I examine how EU gender equality policy emerged as a means to reorganise women's work and personal lives in order to optimise biological reproduction and capitalist productivity by simultaneously increasing women's fertility and their labour market participation. Gender is argued to be an extension of the apparatus of sexuality as analysed by Foucault, enabling a more complex, expansive, and effective form of biopolitical regulation by promising to simultaneously reproduce life and economy. Moreover, gender is inseparable from the neoliberal context in which it is deployed as an “invisible hand” targeted at empowering sexed subjects to self-manage and self-govern by making reproductive choices based on cost–benefit analyses of their personal and working lives.

Feminist NGOs and the European Union: Contracting Opportunities and Strategic Response

European women's organizations were among the first social movements to recognize the European Union (EU) as an important context for claim-making. From the mid-1990s, feminist groups had secured a representation to this transnational opportunity structure in the form of the European Women's Lobby (EWL), which receives EU funding, has access to policy setting, and is credited with a role in the construction and consolidation of EU gender equality policy. More recently, the EWL has experienced a contraction in the EU political opportunity context, a function of Eurocrisis dynamics that deem gender equality too costly at a time of austerity. EU progress on gender equality has stalled, with most policy advanced through non-binding or soft law mechanisms. This work assesses the implications of these shifts for the strategies and patterns of mobilization employed by the EWL as it works to exploit soft law opportunities and develop collaborative strategies with other EU non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and in other intergovernmental fora to promote a gendered analysis of the economic crises. Though this latter strategy is a relatively late and weak engagement on austerity, it marks a departure in strategic terms. The organization has also adopted strategies aimed at compensating for declining resources including seeking out new resource streams and cohering closely to topics where EU funding opportunities remain. Analysis of the EWL's response to this challenging political opportunity structure allows for an assessment of how feminist NGOs deal with austerity-based reductions in the political space and financial support for feminist mobilization and gender equality measures across Europe.

Gender regimes and gender equality measures in Central Eastern European Countries post-accession: the case of Hungary and Poland

The paper is set to examine the state of gender equality in Central Eastern European Countries (CEECs) since accession to the European Union (EU) following the two enlargements in 2004 and 2007, which saw 10 CEECs join the EU. In this context, the paper addresses some implications of transformation, which challenge gender regimes across CEECs. The paper looks at the nature of the policies adopted to ensure gender equality in Central Eastern Europe (CEE) and, in particular, using Hungary's and Poland's family policies as a case study, it evaluates whether EU gender equality measures have had an impact on gender equality and justice in CEE and, more generally, whether they have led to new gender equality paradigms.

This Far, but No Further?

The European Union (EU) is one of the world’s most important policy promoters for gender equality. This article examines the benefits and limitations of EU gender equality policy making in two Western Balkan countries, Croatia and FYR Macedonia. Besides analyzing specific gender policy developments that can be attributed to the EU, particular focus is put on the women’s movement activists’ perceptions of the impact that accession may have on women and gender equality. The study demonstrates that while the Croatian and Macedonian EU accession processes have been beneficial to the introduction of new gender legislation and institutional mechanisms for the advancement of gender equality, the EU gender strategy has also shown serious limitations. Among these—and perhaps the most fundamental—is the strong contrast between stated goals and their actual implementation. I argue that unless profound institutional changes as well as changes in political culture take place in Croatia and Macedonia, the poor compliance with EU gender equality norms and policies will be hard to overcome.

Cultural Categories of Worth and Polish Gender Policy in the Context of EU Accession

Why did Poland pursue policies that retraditionalized the gender regime during the preaccession period (1997-2004), particularly at a time when the European Union (EU) had the greatest power to promote its gender equality agenda? I argue that opposition to the EU's gender equality agenda is a new chapter in the backlash against socialist-era gender policy. The reinscription of women workers as a privileged category of social assistance over mothers at the core of the EU agenda led Polish policy-makers to develop policies promoting mothers rather than women workers as the socially worthy category of protection. Such outcomes point to the ongoing salience of an antisocialist ideological backlash to the future of gender equality legislation, and fundamentally call into question the transformative power of Europe when it comes to gender regimes.

Framing Gender Intersections in the European Union: What Implications for the Quality of Intersectionality in Policies?

This article explores the extent to which the emergence of an anti-discrimination policy in the European Union (EU) implies a shift in EU gender equality policies towards an intersectional approach. The frame analysis of EU gender equality policy documents shows that intersectional dimensions are increasingly present but they are treated implicitly and from a separate perspective, and the inclusion of a wide range of inequalities often implies a degendering of the policy content. We assess the implications of the identified trends for the quality of in gender equality policies, and we suggest the practice of an intersectionality impact assessment as a way to improve the quality of EU policy-making.

Gender Roles, Gender (In)equality and Fertility: An Empirical Test of Five Gender Equity Indices

The division of gender roles in the household and societal level gender (in)equality have been situated as one of the most powerful factors underlying fertility behaviour. Despite continued theoretical attention to this issue by demographers, empirical research integrating gender roles and equity in relation to fertility remains surprisingly sparse. This paper first provides a brief review of previous research that has examined gender roles and fertility followed by a comparison of six prominent gender equality indices: Gender-related Development Index (GDI), Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), Gender Gap Index (GGI), Gender Equality Index (GEI), the European Union Gender Equality Index (EU-GEI) and the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI). The paper then tests how five of these indices impact fertility intentions and behaviour using a series of multilevel (random-coefficient) logistic regression models, applying the European Social Survey (2004/5). The GDI, with its emphasis on human development, adjusted for gender, has the strongest and significant effect on fertility intentions. The EU-GEI, which focuses on the universal caregiver model, uncovers that more equity significantly lowers fertility intentions, but only for women. The remaining indicators show no significant impact. The paper concludes with a reflection and suggestions for future research.