Women in Europe find fine words do not pay the bills

Date: 13/03/1997

OVER half of the European Union's citizens are women, yet on average they still earn around 20&percent; less than their male counterparts and remain seriously under-represented in both politics and top-level employment.

Ninety years ago this month, the first women ever to be elected to a national parliament in Europe - 19 of them - took their seats in the Finnish assembly.

For the past 40 years, the EU's institutions have waxed lyrical about the need for sexual equality. Indeed, the Union's founding Treaty of Rome contains a clause enshrining the principle of 'equal pay for equal work' and six European directives have subsequently been passed to help achieve this goal.

But critics argue that these fine intentions have had precious little effect on the daily lives of millions of European women.

“The 1957 Treaty of Rome may have set out the ideals, but 40 years later there has been no improvement. Pay differences between men and women are still between 20 to 30&percent;,” says Barbara Helferrich, of the European Women's Lobby (EWL), which represents women's rights organisations throughout the Union.

Helferrich argues that the problem of women's pay stems in part from the fact that they are seen as 'problem' employees. Employers, she says, are still often reluctant to take on a woman they feel may leave the company to have a child.

“A woman is seen as a problem and a pregnant woman is seen as a greater problem. Many young women think they are equal, but the moment you have a child you find that you are not,” she says.

Female employees also tend to be regarded as more likely to request 'awkward' working hours to allow them to meet their family commitments. In addition to these forms of discrimination, women who have raised children face the problem of re-entering a rapidly changing work market after several years away.

This situation is repeatedly reflected in statistics which show women are under-represented in the top 'professional' occupations while they are by far the largest group undertaking low-paid and part-time work.

The EWL feels that such attitudes on the part of employers to the question of raising children are just as detrimental to men as they are to women, trapping both sexes in gender roles they do not particularly want to play.

“A child is the result of two people and men should be saying more about that. The current labour market forces men not to take advantage of being a father,” says one women's rights expert.

Unlike some of the more radical feminist groups which came to prominence during the 1970s, the EWL does not seek to give the impression that men are inherently 'bad'.

Indeed, it is very clear in its view that sexual equality can only be achieved in partnership with men. The EWL is calling for what it describes as a 'new gender contract' between the sexes in which both 'sides' would look into ways of changing entrenched attitudes towards their roles.

The aim of this contract would be to find a new balance between work and other commitments, and hopefully improve the quality of life for both men and women.

Often, say supporters of this approach, current attitudes have become so entrenched that we no longer notice them.

“Take Europe's cities for example - they are designed to cater for men who work eight to ten hours a day. This means public transport timetables are drawn up to fit in with this working pattern, with most buses, metro trains or trams running during the morning and evening rush hours. This is despite the fact that 80&percent; of passengers are women and children,” says Helferrich.

“Outside of these times, especially in the evenings, many stations and bus stops are dangerous and badly lit,” she adds.

It is argued that a reassessment of working practices would ultimately bring positive benefits for employers as well as employees. Women often have different approaches to problem-solving than men, bringing fresh perspectives to working environments. Even from a hard-headed business point of view, argue campaigners, it seems ludicrous not to exploit fully such an under-used resource.

The sort of social factors which mitigate against women in professional life also help explain their under-representation in European politics. Even in the Swedish parliament, which has more women members than any other EU legislature, six out of ten elected representatives are men.

At the other end of the spectrum, a mere 6.3&percent; of members of the Greek parliament are female.

The average across the Union works out at around one woman parliamentarian for every eight men. Things are a bit - but not much - better in the EU institutions: 27.6&percent; of MEPs and five of the current 20 European Commissioners are women.

This huge under-representation has led to calls for some sort of positive discrimination legislation to be introduced in member states in order to redress the balance.

It is argued that current inequalities are so entrenched that the only way to ensure women are properly represented is to introduce 'quota' systems, reserving a certain number of parliamentary seats for women.

Such schemes have been used to a greater or lesser extent in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. All have been introduced as temporary measures to be phased out once parity has been reached.

Only Belgium and Italy have introduced measures to ensure a greater balance between the sexes in national parliaments. But others reserve a certain number of places for women on committees and advisory bodies.

Under a Belgian law passed in 1994, at least 25&percent; of the candidates on party lists must be women - and this percentage is set to increase to 33&percent; from 1999 onwards.

Italy passed two electoral laws in 1993 which placed an upper limit of 75&percent; on the number of candidates of one sex on party lists and decreed that the names of men and women must appear alternately on those lists.

However, these laws were declared unconstitutional in 1995 on the grounds that they contravened equal treatment legislation.

Critics of quota systems argue that they are discriminatory and prevent the best person being selected for the job. Evidence of the effectiveness of such schemes is certainly open to interpretation.

Ireland has no quota legislation and is the only country in the world with a woman president: Mary Robinson. Nor does the UK, and yet its longest-serving prime minister to date is Margaret Thatcher.

Similarly, in Sweden, where half of the country's 22 government ministers are women, there are no specific quota laws on the statute book. The Swedish government has, however, set targets to ensure women are equally represented at municipal and regional level by 1998.

But while many member states do not have national legislation on female quotas, a large number of political parties - notably on the 'left' - do, ensuring at least some parliamentary places go to women.

The more general question of employment quotas for women is currently under the spotlight in the European Court of Justice.

The Court's controversial ruling on the October 1995 Kalanke case found that a positive discrimination system operating in Bremen, Germany, was illegal. The Kalanke decision sent the European Commission's Directorate-General for social affairs (DGV) scurrying to the institution's lawyers to find an interpretation of the ruling which would not bring the positive discrimination schemes across the Union shuddering to a halt.

After fevered deliberations, they concluded that Kalanke only banned “rigid” quota systems and not other positive action schemes in favour of women, including flexible quotas.

But that was not the end of the story. This week, the Court has been hearing arguments in the Marschall case, another positive discrimination action brought by a German civil servant who argues he was passed over for promotion because of his sex.

It is hoped the Court's eventual ruling on this second case will clear up any post-Kalanke confusion.

But whatever the judgement, women will continue to push for greater equality. As the slogan for a recent women's conference put it: “Women have the right to half the heaven, half the earth and half the power.”