Study on non-legislative initiatives for companies to promote gender ...

56 Gender equality initiatives
awards, classification of companies, charters and publications (see chapter 2 for more
information) which aim
• to disseminate good practices
• to motivate other companies to adopt and implement similar measures
• to achieve a far-reaching publicity for the assigned enterprises
• to provide economic arguments for equality measures.
To put forward economic arguments to companies seems to be crucial to motivate
them to sign up to such activities. Several studies have shown that activities to tackle
gender inequalities and to foster reconciliation have a positive impact on the companies’
economic performance. 19
This shows that equality measures are not only essential to achieve better social
cohesion, to fulfil the requirements of the European Commission, to achieve the Lisbon
goals and to meet the macroeconomic logic of using the whole potential of the society
but also follow microeconomic efficiency criteria. Therefore it seems to be crucial to
further develop, disseminate and improve instruments for gender equality at the workplace.
In this context, the study aims:
• To create an inventory of label-type or related initiatives taken by national
authorities, social partners and other stakeholders as well as of initiatives individually
taken by companies,
• To analyse and compare these (types of) measures to gain better knowledge of
their operation, results, effectiveness, economic and social impact and the
impact on gender equality in particular, added value as well as insight into the
economic and social arguments/benefits which motivate companies to sign up
for label-type initiatives
• To identify and highlight good practices in the field,
• To disseminate the study results and practices by means of a conference and
its proceedings
This final report gives an overview of the work carried out. It is structured as follows:
The methodological approach is briefly described in chapter 1.2, chapter 2 gives an
overview of non-legislative initiatives promoting gender equality at the workplace and
analyses the measures according to the main types. Individual company initiatives are
presented in chapter 3. Chapter 4 is dedicated to a comparative analysis and assessment
of the diversity of measures with a view to how they are designed, success
factors and drawbacks, effectiveness, and scope of use. Conclusions on the added
value of such initiatives, the appropriateness of the different types and lessons learned
are presented in chapter 5. In the annex a list of all initiatives and selected in-depth
case studies of initiatives and companies can be found.
19
See e.g.: Pecher Consulting GmbH (2008): Economic aspects of family-friendly measures in Austrian
enterprises. <strong>Study</strong> on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Economy and Labour; Prognos AG (2003):
Economic effects of family-friendly measures – cost-benefit analysis. On behalf of the Federal Ministry
for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth (ed.)