Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-09-27-Speech-4-037"
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"en.20070927.4.4-037"2
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"Mr President, firstly I would like to express my gratitude to the Commission for drafting this very important report. Equality between women and men is an issue that continues to deserve our full attention. Although much has been achieved in the past decades, important challenges remain.
The focus of the Commission report is on employment issues. For example, the gender pay gap, insecurity in the job market and the reconciliation of professional and family life are issues that have a bearing on the lives of millions of women every single day. They are also clearly linked to the demographic challenge facing Europe. As the Commission report indicates, six million of the eight million jobs created in the EU since 2000 have been taken up by women. Most of these six million new jobs for women come from the services sector. The 11.7 million new jobs created by the services sector are mostly occupied by women. That is why the services sector, its growth and the internal market are such a key issue for many women in Europe.
However, the majority of new jobs for women are part-time jobs, some of them unsafe and insecure with low salaries. Fixed-term contracts are also a big problem for many women in Europe, who would like to have more sustainability and stability in their family life as well. Commission figures show that, in the EU, 32% of women in employment have a part-time job, compared to only 7% of men, so there is clearly a gender dimension in the part-time job market in Europe.
The gender pay gap, on which the Commission issued an initiative in July, is 15% on average across the EU, and up to 30% in some European countries. The gender pay gap has not decreased, although directives on the principle of equal pay for men and women have been in place for more than 30 years, so it is very timely that the Commission has taken up this issue. On the other hand, we know that Member States that have adopted policies reconciling professional and family life for both women and men have higher birth rates, a higher percentage of women in the labour market and higher employment rates.
Across the EU, women also hold the majority of highly-skilled, non-manual jobs. This week there was quite wide coverage of a Finnish study about women leaders in business. A total of 14 000 Finnish companies were looked at and women business leaders made a 1% better return every year for the stakeholders of companies than male leaders. That is 10% better than men. Even though all the other things were removed from the calculation, there was clearly an advantage for women in business leadership, so this is also something that the Commission is going to take into account in the future.
In Finland, as in other countries, education has been the key for female advancement. The rise in educational standards has gone hand in hand with increased female employment. In Finland, for example, 32.7% of women are highly skilled, compared to only 24.3% of men, according to the Commission study. So all the initiatives in the field of education and life-long learning that the Commission has tabled are needed and it is very important that we keep education focused on gender policies.
My report calls for specific measures to combat inequalities caused by interrupted patterns of employment resulting from maternity leave and leave to take care of dependants. It caused the Commission to develop gender analyses on the impact of pension reforms on women’s lives in the EU with the objective of individualising pension rights as well as the social security and tax system. What I find particularly important is that the report urges Member States to mutualise the cost of maternity leave allowance in order to ensure that women no longer represent a more costly source of labour than men. I certainly hope that my own Member State, which has a world record Government of 60% women ministers, will take on board this issue and mutualise paternity/maternity leave costs.
The report also underlines the need to address the major democratic deficit. We want to investigate the situation that prevents women’s participation in politics and in senior management in public administration at all levels and, if possible, take measures to combat such situations. Attention must also be paid to the situation of women belonging to ethnic minorities and women immigrants, as their marginalisation is reinforced by multiple discrimination from both outside and within their own communities. I urge the Commission to cooperate with Member States to collect relevant data and to enforce measures that would prevent human trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced labour.
I think that we can finish on a very positive and encouraging note. Women today have opportunities that most of their mothers and grandmothers could never have dreamt of. Women who are reaping the benefits of the brave new world should speak out, and I think that it was very important that the Commission took the initiative to table this report. We continue to fight for full equality for both genders in Europe."@en1
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