Research Centre for Gender Equality KETHIGREECE

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Research Centre for Gender Equality (KETHI)GREECE

• Vicky Germotsi and Asimina Gioldasi
• INTERREG IVC PROJECTG4G

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Research Centre for Gender Equality

• The Research Centre for Gender Equality (KETHI)
  is a Legal Entity under Private Law. It is
  supervised and funded by the General Secretariat
  for Equality of the Ministry of the Interior.
  KETHI functions centrally in Athens and
  regionally in Alexandroupoli, Amfissa, Heraklion,
  Kalamata, Komotini, Patras, Preveza, Thessalonica
  and Volos.
• We are dynamically activated in enabling the
  advancement of women in all areas of social,
  political and economic life and we aim at
  contributing decisively in the elimination of
  discriminations against women. We carry out
  researches and studies and implement national and
  European action projects on gender equality
  issues.

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Research Centre for Gender Equality

• The basic aims of our activities are
• to conduct and carry out research and scientific
  studies on gender equality
• to implement national policies and EU programmes
  regarding gender equality
• to release and publish research, studies and
  other information material and make it available
  to the public
• to provide information on women rights and gender
  equality issues.
• to share know-how and expertise on issues
  regarding women counselling in employment,
  entrepreneurship and social integration.
• to co-operate with European and international
  organizations to promote mutual exchange of
  information on gender equality policies.

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The gender economic gap in Greece

• In the Greek labour market a considerable portion
  of the wage gap between males and females is due
  to discrimination in the labour market. This gap
  is found to be one of the largest in Europe.
• Over the last few decades, female labour market
  participation has increased significantly in most
  OECD countries and specifically in Greece, this
  trend has been amongst the strongest observed.
  However, female participation in Greece is still
  low and is actually amongst the lowest within the
  European Union.

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The gender economic gap in Greece

• In addition high rates of female unemployment
  are one of main characteristics of the Greek
  labour market. Greek female unemployment is
  higher than the average EU level. Another key
  characteristic of the Greek labour market is the
  high number of self-employed females. Rates of
  female self-employment in the Greek labour market
  are high, reflecting the structure of the Greek
  economy, where production activities generally
  take place within small family businesses which
  females either run or are employed within.

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The gender economic gap in Greece

• In Greece, the increase of female participation
  has occurred much more recently. In particular,
  while the contraction of the primary sector
  during the 1960s reduced female participation
  and increased their rates of unemployment, the
  expansion of the tertiary sector in the 1990s has
  offered females many employment opportunities and
  has increased their employment levels

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The gender economic gap in Greece

• Regarding institutional factors and their impact
  on the Greek female labour market, changes in the
  Greek Constitution in 2001 had important
  implications for female employment. In
  particular, the new Constitution encourages
  governmental actions aiming at the The adoption
  of positive measures for the promotion of
  equality between men and women (Article 116,
  Greek Constitution).
• Anti-discrimination Law The first
  anti-discrimination legislation in Greece was
  introduced by the Article 22 of the 1975
  Constitution, which established that All workers
  have the right to equal pay for work of equal
  value. In 1997, antidiscrimination was
  reinforced by the adoption of the Amsterdam
  treaty that inspired most of the institutional
  changes recently adopted in Greece, such as the
  reform of the 2001 Constitution

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The gender economic gap in Greece

• Gender Mainstreaming of Employment Policies
• A clear example of gender mainstreaming in
  employment policy is provided by Greece. All
  employability schemes are open to both the
  unemployed (on benefits or not) and the inactive,
  provided they register with the public employment
  service. In line with the female share of the
  unemployed, a 60 quota for women in all
  employability schemes was announced in the NAP on
  employment for 1999. Since 2000, the quota has
  been continuously implemented on the announced
  numbers of all training, job creation and
  work-experience schemes. Since 2004 it also
  applies to the unemployed hired for part-time
  jobs in the public sector.

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The gender economic gap in Greece

• Gender Mainstreaming of Employment Policies
• There are several examples of gender
  mainstreaming in active labour market policies.
  These include female quotas for the beneficiaries
  of all employability measures that are open to
  both the unemployed and the inactive, higher
  subsidies for women than for men belonging to
  socially vulnerable groups, special job creation
  schemes for mothers with children, higher
  subsidies to employers hiring lone parents and
  returnees, inclusion of all women or special
  female groups among the target groups of
  integrated programmes for regional development
  and wide-ranging national programmes for the
  social inclusion of disadvantaged groups.

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The gender economic gap in Greece

• Gender Mainstreaming of Employment Policies
• Policies to reduce vertical segregation
  generally aim to increase the number of women in
  high-level and/or management jobs. A number of
  policy measures have been implemented in Greece
  since the beginning of the 2000s aimed at
  equality in career opportunities. Most of them
  are still in operation and funded by the European
  Structural Funds.
• Another example is the scheme of positive
  actions in favour of women in large firms and
  SMEs that aims at supporting the career
  advancement of women in firms and the upgrading
  of their skills. Eligible actions include
  information and sensitisation of female workers
  regarding the goals of the programme, counselling
  and training, improvement of educational
  attainment, teleworking and the creation of a
  care infrastructure.

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The gender economic gap in Greece

• Gender Mainstreaming of Employment Policies
• There has never been any attempt to gender
  mainstream wage policy. However, a number of
  measures deployed in the field of career policy
  are expected to have an indirect positive impact
  on tackling the gap through their direct effect
  on desegregation of employment by gender.
• The gender mainstreaming in Greece is not
  applied in the case of childcare leave, since the
  underlying logic of leave is to enable mothers
  (and not parents) to cope with care duties.
• Reconciliation policies focus on the creation of
  a publicly funded infrastructure for the care of
  children, the elderly and the disabled, and the
  extension of the schedules of public nurseries,
  kindergartens and schools.

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The actors involved

• General Secretariat for Gender Equality Ministry
  of Interior
• Research Centre for Gender Equality
• Ministry of Employment and Social Protection
• Ministry of Development
• Regional Committees for Gender Equality
• Greek Ombudsman
• Trade Unions of Employees and Employers

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Current projects

• KETHI does not currently implement any project
  related to the issue. However we are very
  experienced in the implementation of this kind of
  projects. Some of our recent projects include the
  project tilted Integrated Interventions in
  favor of women, in the framework of the
  Operational Programme Employment and Vocational
  Training 2000-2006 of the 3rd Community Support
  Framework coordinated by KETHI and the General
  Secretariat for Gender Equality. The specific
  project did not only support unemployed women in
  finding work, but also facilitated the
  reconciliation of family and working life.

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Current projects

• KETHI also implemented the European project
  Localising Gender Equality through Development
  in the framework of the 5th Community Action
  Programme relating to the Community Framework
  Strategy on Gender Equality. The project aims
  were to empower women, in order to seek greater
  participation in economic and political
  structures at local level and to improve the
  knowledge among women in local societies
  regarding developmental local policies and
  initiatives

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The main obstacles against removing the economic
gap

• Traditional type of Greek families and strong
  family bonds in the Greek society.
• Gender stereotypes.
• Availability of childcare facilities. In the last
  years, the availability of childcare facilities
  in Greece has increased significantly. However,
  the institutional measures in Greece are lagging
  behind the European standards in creating
  favourable conditions for the employment of
  females with children while public support for
  childcare is very low.

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The main obstacles against removing the economic
gap

• Flexible forms of work. The availability of some
  flexible forms of work, such as part-time,
  seasonal work, and work from home facilitates a
  balance between work and family, and thus
  increases female participation. However, this
  type of work is not very common in Greece.
• Desegregation of female and male professions. For
  example, the profession of the teacher is
  overrepresented by women.

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Kind of support needed in order to remove the
gender economic gap

• Greece in order to remove the economic gender
  gap needs a combination of funding, know-how and
  political support. In this context, the General
  Secretariat for Gender Equality has been actively
  participating in the preparation of the 2007-2013
  NATIONAL STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT PLAN. To that
  effect, an ad hoc Group has been set up to plan
  GSGE interventions the said Group elaborated and
  forwarded proposals to consolidate Equality as a
  sectoral policy with a horizontal nature of
  intervention.

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Kind of support needed in order to remove the
gender economic gap

• They achieved the following
• a. General Target 11 promotion of the economic,
  social and developmental character of gender
  equality matters by directly linking them to
  dominant national political priorities
  (development-employment-social cohesion) was
  integrated in the NSDP.
• Moreover, General Target 12 Improvement of
  the quality of public policies etc includes the
  explicit reference A significant horizontal
  target is to effectively integrate the national
  policy on Equality in the entire public action
  spectrum etc

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Kind of support needed in order to remove the
gender economic gap

• b. Funds have been reserved, as explicitly cited
  in all (Sectoral and Regional) Operational
  Programmes To promote gender equality and
  achieve the targets of the Operational Programme
  in this sector, a specific percentage out of the
  programmes budget is going to be reserved in the
  most convenient way. This percentage will be
  specified by decision of the monitoring
  committee.
• c. The implementation of specific actions in
  favour of women/and actions to support womens
  entrepreneurship and employment have been
  planned, including to incorporate equality in the
  planning and to implement all axes, actions and
  priorities of all Operational Programmes.

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What do we hope G4G will bring us

• G4G will bring us experience exchange in
  European level and we hope it will contribute to
  the whole national effort for the reduction of
  the gender economic gap in Greece.

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• Thank you for your attention