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

Gender equality initiatives 1
Executive Summary
Gender equality is a fundamental right, a common value of the EU and a necessary
condition for the achievement of the EU objectives on growth, employment and social
cohesion. Indeed, the combined efforts of the Community and the Member States
genuinely helped to transform the situation of men and women in Europe. This is
reflected in a steadily increasing female participation in employment and a higher level
of education as compared to men. However, women are still disadvantaged on the
labour market, as labour market segregation and inequalities in working conditions still
persist.
For a long time, the European Union has been taking measures and has responded
with policies to reduce the imbalances in gender equality and reconcile professional,
private and family lives of women and men. Also the European social partners have
been active in promoting gender equality at the workplace.
At national level the European endeavours have found its counterpart. Many national
laws have been adopted on the basis of the Community acquis. Moreover, the national
authorities, social partners and other players (NGOs, networks etc.) have launched
various programmes and projects tackling gender inequality at the workplace in
different fields following a variety of approaches. One way of combating gender
inequalities is the development of tools to manage, measure, communicate and reward
good practices of enterprises and organisations in the field of gender equality. Different
types of tools have been developed at national and regional level such as labels, prizes
and awards, charters, classifications of companies, and publications 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.
Today’s diversity of instruments calls for a systematic review of approaches used and
for a synopsis of lessons learned so far. 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 selected
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, 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 draw conclusions on how to further develop non-legislative initiatives to
promote gender equality at the workplace