WUNRN
European Women's Lobby - EWL
IMPACT OF THE CRISIS ON GENDER
EQUALITY NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSES SAYS WOMEN'S RIGHTS & GENDER EQUALITY
COMMITTEE TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
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“Women are facing a silent
pernicious crisis which worsens and weakens their condition. Before the crisis
there were already more women affected than men by unemployment, precarious
work, part-time, low wages and slow careers. Today, as a result of austerity
policies, they suffer a double punishment. This is an issue at the heart of
political equality and employment. I say stop to the decline of women in
society”, said Elisabeth
Morin-Chartier, EPP MEPs and rapporteur of the resolution, based on the report
she initiated in December 2012, available here.
The consequences of austerity
measures in Europe are disastrous for women’s rights: they undermine women’s
rights, perpetuate existing gender inequalities and create new ones, and hamper
the prospects of sustainable and equal economic progress in
Austerity measures also lead to a
care crisis, since the cutbacks in public care and health services lead to the
transfer of the responsibility of care from society to households, i.e. mostly
women, and a return to traditional gender roles. In 2010, 28.3% of inactive and
part-time working women in the EU were not able to work full time due to care
responsibilities, up from 27.9% in 2009.
Moreover, those measures have a
broader impact on non-economic factors: reduction of funding for women’s
organisations and gender equality institutions have direct consequences by
undermining women’s voices in the public sphere, and the decrease of vital
services such as shelters for women victims of male violence.
In the non-legislative resolution,
MEPs call on the European Commission to stop budget cuts in the public sector,
in social security benefits and social welfare, education and childcare
services. They also call for greater female entrepreneurship by facilitating
women’s access to microcredit and improving a public transport policy to
facilitate mobility.
They also stress the structural
factors which show that female poverty is not new nor only due to the current
financial and economic crisis: the pay gap between men and women, gender
stereotypes and the lack of proactive measures to ensure work-life balance are
some of the long-standing reasons which are accentuated in the context of the
crisis.
This “double punishment” is also
highlighted in the EWL publication “The price of austerity – the impact of women’s rights
and gender equality in Europe”, which maps the impact of
austerity measures on women in the EU, based on the input of the EWL members
and other sources. Recommendations are addressed to the European Commission, EU
member states and women’s organisations.