Gender segregation and the European Employment Strategy: levels and divisions

Article abstract:

Equal opportunities has constituted one of the four pillars of the European Employment Strategy (EES) as approved at the Luxembourg summit in 1997. However, there are tensions between the EES and the imperatives of budgetary restraint (which have caused job losses in public services, where women are disproportionately employed) and between quantitative targets of increasing women's labour-force participation and qualitative targets of overcoming gender segregation. This article explores these tensions, drawing evidence from comparative European research and the particular experience of Sweden.