ReIncluGen

In order to gain a better understanding of how gender equality is practiced in all five consortium countries, a comparative study of gender attitudes was conducted as well as secondary quantitative analysis. Separately, the qualitative research has been conventionalized in greater detail and guidelines on the ethics, the photo-voice interviews, focus group discussions and observational fieldwork have been laid out.

Differences in Gender Equality across Austria, Belgium, Italy, Poland and Spain

Regarding the comparative analyses of gender equality attitudes many differences were made out between the countries. While all countries endorse gender equality on a legal basis, they differ in how far these policies are put into practice, especially as in 2020 Poland opposed the EU plan to “promote gender quality and women’s empowerment”. Women’s rights have been further undermined by Poland’s Anti-Abortion law which was adopted in January 2021.[1] Plus, regarding migrant women, it is Poland that faces the greatest challenges in integrating in the labour market and society properly.

In order to obtain a better understanding of how gender equality has evolved in Europe, where inequalities still prevail and how this varies across the five European countries (Austria, Belgium, Italy, Poland, Spain), the partners UNITN analysed the European Value Survey as well as the European Social Survey. Although Europe has become more equal concerning gender in the past 30 years, women generally adopt a more egalitarian standpoint regarding gender equality. Plus, women are still more likely to be paid less or be involved in unpaid care work even though women generally have a better education than men.[2]

Although there has been an increase in both women in the labour market and women obtaining higher education from 2002 to 2018, Austria yet is the only of the countries studied in which men have higher chances of completing tertiary education. Furthermore, the gender pay gap has decreased since 2010 it nevertheless remains the second-highest in Europe (with 18.8 percentage points compared to 12.7 as the European average). [3] [4] [5] Unfortunately, when regarding Austria it was found that even though the support for mothers of preschool kids who work has increased around 40 % in the past three decades, still only around half of the Austrian population endorses mothers of preschool kids to work in 2017. Moreover, the attitude towards women joining the workforce has plateaued since 2007. Lastly, the support of women’s family and social roles has also increased in the past thirty years, albeit not majorly (~20 %).[6]

Co-Defining Guidelines for the Qualitative Research Strategy

ReIncluGen, as mentioned above already, is defined by its participatory action approach that seeks to include not only academic partners, but also social workers of the respective civil society organisations (CSOs) and migrant women who participate in the activities of these CSOs, directly in the research. Thus, in line with the participatory action research the CSOs were strongly involved in the guidelines’ conception, which was spearheaded by SYNYO. This means that participants’ views and preferences are involved, discussed together and reflected upon during the general assembly meetings, by all academic and CSO partners. Ethics guidelines were conceived for all work packages encompassed by ReIncluGen. Plus, in order to fully understand the womens’ conceptions of empowerment, research methodologies such as photovoice-interviews, focus groups and observational methods will be applied.

If you want to know more about the methodology, visit the website of ReIncluGen and read the blogpost SYNYO wrote: “Blogpost 4: Empowered by photography as a research method: methodological insights by SYNYO”

Further Achievements

• The first meeting for the co-development of a digital platform was held on the 26th of June. All consortium members and CSOs were invited to participate and share ideas, in order to make the platform as useful for future research and European wide collaboration between CSOs working towards gender equality.
• On the 20^th of June SYNYO participated in a workshop on trauma-informed research, organized by the University of Antwerp with Emmy Tiderington – associate professor at the Rutgers University – and Jordan Goodwin – doctoral candidate at Rutgers University – as key-speakers. This topic is of great importance when conducting research on vulnerable populations, such as migrant women as they might especially be subjected to having experienced trauma. It is equally important not to retraumatize them as well as the researchers themselves, when asking them about their life stories.
• Lastly, if the brief overview on how attitudes towards gender equality vary across Europe has sparked your overall interest in gender empowerment, you can now also delve further and read up on which and how policies promote gender empowerment in Austria. Find the full and published report “National Report on Policies that Promote Gender Empowerment” on the ReIncluGen website.

References

[1] Deutsche Welle (2021). Controversial Polish abortion law goes into effect. https://www.dw.com/en/poland-thousands-protest-as-abortion-law-comes-into-effect/a-56363990

[2] ReIncluGen (2023). D2.2. Gender Equality Attitudes in Europe. A Secondary Data Analysis. p. 1.

[3] ReIncluGen (2023). D2.2. Gender Equality Attitudes in Europe. A Secondary Data Analysis. p. 23.

[4] EuroStat (2023). Gender pay gap statistics. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Gender_pay_gap_statistics

[5] Bundeskanzleramt (o.J.). Einkommen und der Gender Pay Gap. https://www.bundeskanzleramt.gv.at/agenda/frauen-und-gleichstellung/gleichstellung-am-arbeitsmarkt/einkommen-und-der-gender-pay-gap.html

[6] ReIncluGen (2023). D2.2. Gender Equality Attitudes in Europe. A Secondary Data Analysis. p. 14-15.

Links

https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/projects/reinclugen/news-activities/

Keywords

migration, women, gender equality, update, photovoicing