Living and working in Europe in an era of disruption: Gendered impacts, challenges and opportunities

14.30 CET

Welcome and introduction by Barbara Gerstenberger, Head of Working Life Unit, Eurofound

14.35 CET

Moderated by Barbara Gerstenberger, Head of Working life Unit, Eurofound

Discussion with:

• Martina Bisello, Research manager, Employment Unit, Eurofound

Employment impacts of the COVID-19 crisis in the EU from a gender perspective. How were women in different types of jobs affected?

Barbara will reflect on how these employment dynamics translated into differences in working conditions and quality of work between men and women (with findings from Eurofound’s forthcoming European Working Conditions Telephone Survey (EWCtS). 

• Phil Ní Sheaghdha, General Secretary of The Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), Ireland

The experience of healthcare workers in Ireland during COVID-19 and the challenges post-pandemic, including the long-term demographic challenges facing the EU’s ageing population.

• Anna Kopp, Director of IT at Microsoft and EMEA Women’s Community Lead

The experience of the shift to remote work from a company perspective, including the challenges that women faced during the pandemic, as well as long term prospects linked to remote work, such as visibility and career progression.

Interactive Q&A with audience

15.05 CET

LIVE intervention from the EU Presidency of Czechia conference, Prague on Tackling energy poverty: EU approach & sharing best practices

• Massimiliano Mascherini, Head of social policies, Eurofound
• Blandine Mollard, Researcher, European Institute for Gender Equality

What does the impact of the war in Ukraine, rising inflation, higher costs of living and greater risks of energy poverty, in this new era of disruption mean for living conditions and gender equality?

Interactive Q&A with audience

15.20 CET

• Professor Rosie Campbell, Director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership

A reflection on previous panels: What next?

15.35 CET

Closing remarks

15.45 CET

END

Moderator: Barbara Gerstenberger, Eurofound

Barbara Gerstenberger is Head of the Working Life unit at Eurofound. In this role, she coordinates the research teams investigating job quality in Europe based on the European Working Conditions Survey and has overall responsibility for the European Observatory of Working Life and research into industrial relations in the EU. She joined Eurofound in 2001 as a research manager in the then newly established European Monitoring Centre on Change (EMCC). In 2007, she moved to Eurofound’s Information and Communication unit as Head of Communication Products, before being appointed Coordinator in the Directorate in 2011. Previously, she worked as senior research officer in the European Metalworkers’ Federation in Brussels. A graduate in political science from Hamburg University, she completed a Master's degree in Public Administration at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Speaker: Martina Bisello, Eurofound

​Martina Bisello is a research manager in the Employment unit at Eurofound. Her research interests include gender gaps in the labour market, occupational change and the impact of technology on work. Prior to joining Eurofound in 2014, she was visiting researcher at the Centre for Market and Public Organisation at the University of Bristol and at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex. She holds an MSc in International Economics from the University of Padova and a PhD in Economics (Doctor Europaeus mention) from the University of Pisa.

Speaker: Phil Ni Sheaghdha, INMO

Phil is a trained intensive care nurse and general secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO). She has worked as an ICU nurse in Ireland, Australia, the UK, and Memorial Sloane Kettering in New York, following training in Dublin and London. She began work for the INMO in 1998, later completing an MA in industrial relations and a Higher Diploma in employment law. She was Director of Industrial Relations from 2008 until 2018 when she was appointed general secretary. As general secretary, she has overall responsibility for the organisation, leading on INMO’s advocacy on national nursing policy and through various public sector pay agreements. In 2019, she led the organisation’s first strike in two decades – winning pay increases and staffing improvements for nurses and midwives. She is one of the Vice Presidents of ICTU Ireland’s trade union federation and Co-chair of Ireland’s Emergency Department Taskforce. She is currently an Executive Council member of the European Federation of Nurses and a representative of the European Federation of Public Services Union.

Speaker: Anna Kopp, Director of IT at Microsoft and EMEA Women’s Community Lead

Anna Kopp is Director IT at Microsoft Germany since 2015 and has been with the company since 2004, previously Global as Customer Satisfaction Lead, as well as EMEA-wide for midmarket sales. She is also branch manager of the large main office in Munich, co-chair of the Women@Microsoft Board, member of the Advisory Board of the Munich Business School and on the Board of Directors for Muenchner Kreis. Anna comes from Sweden where she studied International Communication at the University of Stockholm and has been in Germany since 1992. In 2020 she was voted one of the most inspiring women in Germany and has won a number of technology and industry awards. She is a specialist in the new world of work from a cultural, political and practical perspective and advocates flexible working models.

Speaker: Massimiliano Mascherini, Eurofound

Massimiliano is Head of Unit for Social Policies at Eurofound since October 2019. He joined in 2009 to design and coordinate projects on youth employment, NEETs and their social inclusion, as well as on the labour market participation of women. As a Senior Research Manager, he led new research on monitoring convergence in the European Union. He studied at the University of Florence, majoring in Actuarial and Statistical Sciences and completing a PhD in Applied Statistics. He has been visiting fellow at the University of Sydney and at Aalborg University and visiting professor at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

Speaker: Blandine Mollard, EIGE

Blandine Mollard works as a researcher in the Research and Indices Team of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) in Vilnius. She recently coordinated the 2021 edition of the Gender Equality Index with a thematic focus on health. One of the co-authors of the 2020, 2019 and 2017 editions of the Gender Equality Index, she also coordinated EU-wide research on unpaid care work, youth and digitalisation and violence against women. Before joining EIGE in 2016, she worked on Research and Statistics on gender issues in the Pacific Island Region for the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and in the Gender Coordination Unit of the International Organization for Migration in Geneva.

Speaker: Professor Rosie Campbell, Director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership

Professor Rosie Campbell is professor of politics and director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London. She held positions at Birkbeck and UCL before joining King’s in 2018. She has recently written on barriers to participation in politics, gendered patterns of support for the populist radical right and what voters want from their elected representatives. Her publications cover the subjects of voting behaviour, public opinion, the politics of diversity and political recruitment. She is the principle investigator of the ESRC funded Representative Audit of Britain, which surveyed all candidates standing in the 2015, 2017 and 2019 British General Elections. She has co-authored reports for the Fawcett Society, The Expert Panel on Electoral Reform for the Welsh Assembly, the EHRC, BBC Radio Four’s Woman’s Hour, The Electoral Commission, The Fabian Women’s Network and The Hansard Society.