| dc.description.abstract | The last decades have witnessed significant progress in women's educational attainment, labour market participation and position in the European society as a whole. Today, more women than men graduate from universities: 60% of university graduates are women. Today, more women work in Europe than ever before: their employment rate exceeded 60% and the EU is making more use of its talent and better use of its skills. Today, it is clear that women and men cannot be discriminated against on grounds of gender.
The EU has contributed to this progress through a multitude of measures such as legislation, dedicated funding and action programmes, specific measures for the advancement of women, social dialogue and dialogue with civil society. Gender equality is a fundamental right, a common value of the EU, and a necessary condition for the achievement of the EU objectives of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. It has become a well-established area of policy action as enshrined in the EU Treaties and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Gender equality has progressively been integrated in all EU policies, and is now well anchored in employment and cohesion policies, research, education, development cooperation and the Europe 2020 process to name some examples.
This has been possible because since its early days, the European Union has been given by Member States the competence and the authority to act on gender equality. Back in 1957, the Treaty of Rome already included the principle of equal pay for equal work for women and men. With the Defrenne case in 19711, the Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed that this principle was directly applicable, thereby giving citizens the right to directly rely on it in national courts and paving the way for modern European gender equality law.
As the EU Treaties empower the European Commission to adopt measures to ensure equal opportunities and equal treatment between women and men in matters of employment and occupation, the Commission has over the years taken a number of legislative steps in the field of employment, in particular the principle of equal pay and the principle that women and men must have the same promotion and training opportunities2. It has also proposed legal instruments establishing equal treatment in social security and for self-employed workers and assisting spouses3, thereby considerably improving their social security protection. Important legislation has also been promoted in the field of reconciliation between private and professional life | en_US |
