Gender and career development
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Social partners’ attempts to influence other organisations
Clearly, some of the social partners – in particular the trade unions – have been actively calling for legislation and policy changes related to gender and careers. In a number of countries, trade unions also appear to have had an impact on highlighting these issues among their members through various initiatives. However, it is less obvious in what way employer organisations have sought to encourage their members to take a more proactive approach to the problem. Employers are generally reluctant to encourage regulation on this issue, including regulation through collective agreements, preferring instead tailor-made company-level agreements.
| Country | Social partner initiatives |
|---|---|
| DE | The BDA employer confederation promotes the fostering of women’s careers through a bundle of policies centred on the principles of equal opportunities for both sexes, and a family-friendly business culture. It argues that these principles should be embedded in the enterprise’s human resource policy and then promoted to employees at all levels. |
| DK | The Confederation of Danish Industries (Dansk Industri, DI) and the Danish Centre for Information on Women and Gender (KVINFO) have initiated a project called ‘Women on board’, aimed at promoting the appointment of more women to the boards of private companies. The main feature of the project is a database of information on women who are qualified for board positions. All members of DI can use the database to search for prospective members for their boards. DI has made a number of recommendations to its members, namely to private companies in the industry sector, in an effort to increase women’s representation in management positions; such recommendations include making visible opportunities available for flexible working time, offering career development programmes and management training. This resulted from a survey showing that career development was among the top priorities for female managers, while only 30% of companies offer such programmes. |
| ES | Both CC.OO and UGT have cooperated with the government in drawing up the draft law on gender equality. Under this draft law, there will be a duty to negotiate measures aimed at promoting equal treatment and equal opportunities for men and women, or to introduce an equality plan in the collective bargaining agreement. The draft legislation also includes measures aimed at devising collective agreements for working time arrangements and at securing greater rights to information about issues such as gender segregation at work. |
| FI | Under the revised Gender Equality Act (2005) and the revised Act on equality between men and women at the workplace, which came into force on 1 June 2005, an employer must draw up a gender equality plan in cooperation with staff, when at least 30 workers are employed on a regular basis. An equality plan must include an analysis of the existing situation regarding gender equality in the workplace, including a breakdown of the placement of women and men in different tasks, and an analysis of men’s and women’s tasks; it should also include measures, planned or implemented, to promote equality, along with an evaluation of existing measures and the results they have produced. To date, approximately every second workplace in the public sector has implemented such planning, covering about two thirds of employees. One example of how such a plan can affect women’s pay concerns the food processing plant Cloetta Fazer Suklaa. In this particular company, women used to earn less than men, and the company differentiated between women’s and men’s machines, thus considering women’s work to be easier than men’s. Subsequently, however, the company trained every worker to use all kinds of machines; once the women had been trained and their skills developed, their wages were then increased. |
| UK | Since 2002–2003, an explicit public service agreement target has been in place across government, in relation to delivering an achievable improvement of equality for women. The government’s Women and Equality Unit (WEU) has been given the task of advising other departments on their specific targets for achieving this aim and of reporting on progress across the government. However, in the government report Jobs for the girls (205Kb PDF), it was noted that the WEU still has considerable work to do and may have neither the necessary authority in relation to other departments nor the resources to complete its task. In 2006, the government issued an action plan, which includes the following measures: support for initiatives aimed at increasing the availability of quality part-time work; a programme for exemplar employers (more than 80 companies have signed up so far); and support to trade union equality representatives through the Union Modernisation Fund. In April 2007, a new Equality Bill is set to come into force, which places a new gender equality duty on public sector employers. |
Source: EIRO national centres, 2006
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Page last updated: 28 May, 2007