Gender mainstreaming and family policy in Europe: Perspectives, Researches and Debates

Abstract

Gender mainstreaming was established as a major global strategy for the promotion of gender equality in the Beijing Platform for Action from the Fourth United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Also Europe has been focusing increasing attention on gender issues, and especially on considerations on the female condition. After 10 years (and something), the evaluation of equal opportunities mainly focuses on qualification measures for unemployed women and improvements for childcare facilities, the consideration of gender mainstreaming in other policy areas as well as macro economic effects on employment and unemployment of women. Recent developments in European countries are that more and more women are joining the labour force, birth rates are declining and social policies are mainly orienting their measures towards gender equality. Whereas previously the countries with the highest period fertility rates were those in which family-oriented cultural traditions were most pronounced and in which women’s labour market participation was least, these relationships are now wholly reversed. These problems, set within a European framework of public spending cuts, make it difficult to maintain and sustain the current type of welfare state. This book focuses on the relation between family and gender mainstreaming to stress, if and how, the debate on the topic of reconciliation policies, family policies and gender issues are implemented in the European social policy systems. Each author addresses this issue in their own terms; thanks to their original approach, it is possible appreciate a variety of aspects, which intertwine in different ways but which all contribute to simplify the multidimensional framework of the relationship between gender, family and work in the European arena.