briefing papers for policy makers

Initial Recommendations
Employability - European level:
1. Policies to reduce working hours for all employees should be given more weight than policies encouraging parttime
employment for women.
Employability - National level:
2. Women’s Studies courses for women aged 40+ should be set up to help them enter or re-enter education and the
labour market.
Employability - Local/course level:
3. A period of work placements during the course is advantageous to enable Women’s Studies students to try out
diverse employment sectors and to gain a realistic view of the labour market.
4. Women’s Studies courses should include training for students in how to articulate and market their specific
skills.
Equal Opportunities - European level:
5. All European countries should offer careers guidance and it should incorporate gender awareness for both boys
and girls.
6. Careers advisors should receive gender awareness training. Their activities should be regularly monitored and
audited, including a gender audit, and incentives created to facilitate the promotion of men into traditionally
female jobs and women’s opportunities to work outside the service sector.
7. Domestic and care labour training should become part of the primary and secondary schools training for all boys
and girls in all European countries.
8. Employers in all European countries should be required to carry out gender audits and to include action plans for
improving gender imbalances.
9. Research needs to be undertaken to find the most effective ways and incentives that change attitudes to enable
both women and men to pursue their chosen professional lives as well as cope with domestic labour and carework.
10. International mentoring schemes for women with Gender Studies expertise need to be developed and promoted
throughout the European Union through bodies such as the ‘Women and Science’ Unit.
11. To transform gender segregation in the labour market employers need to be offered incentives to make gender
awareness part of their job specification, and to promote greater gender balance in employment.
12. European policy should support targeted positive action at national level to enhance women’s participation and
advancement in academe.
13. The full institutionalisation of Women’s Studies as a discipline, available both within traditional subjects and as
a stand-alone degree, should be part of the implementation of the Bologna Agreement.
Equal Opportunities - National level:
14. All jobs that deal with equal opportunities should have a gender awareness-training requirement as part of their
job description.
15. Women’s Studies Centres should be supported to act as dissemination centres for gender research and equal
opportunities along the lines of the Swedish National Gender Secretariat.
16. National mentoring schemes for Gender Studies experts need to be put in place.
17. National governments should consider using tax incentives and other fiscal measures to encourage employers to
improve gender imbalances in areas such as promotion, the pay gap, and parental leave taken by men rather than
women.
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