Documents Fagan, Colette 41 results

"This report:
- Assesses the current employment conditions of part-time workers in comparison with those of comparable full-time workers across a range of countries.
- Investigates the barriers to mutually agreed and freely chosen part-time work that meets the needs of both employers and workers.
- Identifies those government policies and enterprise policies and practices regarding working hours and working-time arrangements, which appear to be likely to improve both access to, and the quality of, part-time work arrangements, while also advancing gender equality.
- Reviews and analyses those government and enterprise policies, practices and overall conditions that may help workers to successfully transition between full- and part-time work."

"While the momentum has certainly not yet disappeared from the gender equality agenda within Europe, the impact of that agenda remains patchy. Progress within individual member states has been significant but not always steady or cumulative. At the European level more attention has been paid to the gender pay gap but policy initiatives remain weak. The loss of the equal opportunities pillar in the new employment guidelines puts this momentum at risk but the new phase still includes commitments to an integrated strategy of gender mainstreaming and equal opportunities."

"In 2003, equal opportunities policy in the European Union suffered both ups and downs. New opportunities came in the guise of the hotly contested new directive on gender equality outside the field of employment, in the invitation to present the first of an annual report on equality between women and men to the Spring Council, in the consolidation of gender mainstreaming within the second round of the National Action Plans on social inclusion and in the new commitments to 'substantial reductions by 2010' in gender gaps in employment, unemployment and pay that were included in the new employment guidelines in 2003. These new guidelines presented, however, a major challenge to gender equality as the new phase of the European Employment Strategy dispensed with the four pillars, and therefore the equal opportunities pillar. Instead gender equality became just one of 10 new guidelines. In December the launch of the Employment Taskforce report appeared to push employment policy back more to a 'full employment with flexibility' approach and away from concerns with job quality. The focus was therefore more on the integration of women into employment rather than on closing the equality gap."