Blog Articles

Are public services leading the way? This was the question asked on 26 April during an interesting discussion chaired by Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Monika Vana, a member of the Parliament’s Intergroup on Common Goods & Public Services.  It looked at women as employees, as users of public services and in decision-making.

Employees

“Governments have a key role to promote gender equality in all policies and in public services”, said Ms Nuria Diez Guardia from the European Commission. Firstly, women spend more time caring for children and dependent elderly people. Secondly, highly-educated women in the European Union represent 60 percent of workers in the public sector, compared to 30 percent of male workers. An interesting observation was made in Denmark that public sector collective agreements – the negotiation of employment terms and conditions between employers and trade union representatives – take into account work-life balance as the sector employs mainly women, while agreements in the private sector do not take the same considerations into account as the bulk of employees are men. Consequently, gender inequality is reinforced as women are better placed than men to take up parental leave. Paid parental leave and child care services are important for both parents, said Ms Diez Guardia.

The gender pay gap can be explained in several ways, explained Ms Diez Guardia. Women’s work is undervalued (it’s important to note that this does not mean that men’s work is overvalued), women are pressured to take responsibility for the household and children and therefore have less time available to work, and are commonly perceived to be less committed as a result. Raising the value of female jobs is an important measure that we must take. Looking more closely at the education sector, there is a low gender pay gap for teachers in Italy and Poland due to women being well-remunerated in this specific profession (read more about occupational gender segregation).

The Council of European Municipalities and Regions informed participants that it is relaunching the ten-year old European Charter for Equality of Women and Men in Local Life, encouraging towns and regions to improve gender equality in the areas of employment, health and social affairs; it is accompanied by a toolkit.

Users of public services

The fact that men in Sweden take longer paternity leave compared to men in other EU Member States was highlighted as a good example to encourage the equal sharing of leave responsibilities. As I am Swedish I remarked that studies have shown that although men do take more paternity leave, gender inequality in the household persists as men often perceive their leave as a prolonged holiday with their children. Ms Nuria Diez Guardia added that, indeed, paternity leave in Sweden often correlates with hunting season and the football World Cup!

I shared Social Platform’s position on investing in services and work-life balance to improve gender equality, highlighting our recommendations for an EU legal framework for all types of leave to address inequalities between women and men in paid and unpaid work, the need for benchmarks concerning the provision of essential services, and the use of EU funding – not to cover the cost of services, but to improve provision of services in Member States. You can read more in my related blog about ‘Motherhood Penalty, Fatherhood Bonus’.

Decision-making

“If you are not a woman in a high position of a company you are not really listened to – you need to be able to decide to influence”, stated Susanna Zucchelli, Diversity Manager at the European Centre of Employers and Enterprises providing Public Services in Italy. Ms Zucchelli urged participants and decision-makers alike to focus on improving productivity – not just for women, but for everybody. She runs a project that supports women returning from leaves of absence due to, for example, care of elderly relatives or children. The key action of the project has been to train the “often resistant male head of the office”, thereby bringing about a positive change to the culture of the company. Other measures Ms Zucchelli enforced in her role as a manager is to reduce internal emailing, improve time-management, make meetings efficient and tackle the “7 o’clock lobby” – when men meet for after work drinks, subsequently excluding women who often need to return home to care for their families.