The impact of the economic crisis on women and men and on gender equality policies - New European re

Published: Wednesday, January 16, 2013

This European report aims to assess the impact of this crisis on the situation of women and men in Europe and on gender equality policies.

This report is a product of the EGGE and the EGGSI expert networks of the European Commission. It covers 27 Member States, the EEA-EFTA countries and three candidate countries: Turkey, Croatia and FYROM. The report draws four main conclusions of the crisis.

The first conclusion is that there has been a levelling down of gender gaps in employment, unemployment, wages and poverty over the crisis. This however does not reflect progress in gender equality as it is based on lower rates of employment, higher rates of unemployment and reduced earnings for both men and women.

The second main conclusion of this report is that the labour market behaviour of women over the crisis has been similar to that of men. The traditional view that women behave as employment buffers, called in when demand expands but pushed back when it contracts has been challenged for previous crises, but has been definitely refuted by the experience of this crisis. The contemporary 'buffers' are young men and women on temporary employment contracts and migrant workers.

The third main conclusion of this report is that, while there is evidence of contained but uneven retrenchment in welfare provisions in the first years of the crisis, there is a threat that fiscal consolidation may ultimately reduce both the welfare provisions being made and the related employment with associated gender equality impacts.

The fourth main conclusion is that in the vast majority of countries gender mainstreaming has not been implemented in policy design and policy implementation over the crisis. Neither recovery nor consolidation measures have been assessed from a gender perspective in the vast majority of cases.

Read full version of the report