 Hello. In 2015 the UN adopted its 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Among the 17 goals, STT-5, which aims to end all forms of discrimination against women and to achieve gender equality. The EU has committed itself to implementing these goals, which have been integrated into the EU's policy and economic frameworks. Notwithstanding a long history of supporting, at least on paper, women's participation in the labour market at the supranational level. In an assessment based on Eurostat data from 2020, Commissioner for the Economy, Paul Argenti-Loni, admitted that the EU has unfortunately moved away from its objectives on STT-5. A recent report published by the Brussels office, the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, sheds light on the reasons for the lack of progress. Today we're speaking to the authors of the report to find out more about the reasons for persisting gender inequalities in EU labour market participation and about policy levers to achieve real and lasting change. Dora, across the EU, gender inequalities in the labour market persist. According to your research for the report, in which areas are these most visible and in what ways are women affected? The major reason behind gender inequalities in the labour market is the burden of unpaid care work done inside the family. For example, more than a third of inactive women report their caring responsibilities as the main reason for not working, not participating in the labour market, while that is the case for only a very small share of men around 5%. The same goes for reasons for part-time employment. Much more women than men work part-time precisely because of their care responsibilities. So overall, the inequality on the labour market cannot be understood or then improved without taking into consideration the care responsibilities that take place outside the labour market itself. Your report offers an in-depth examination of gender and employment policies at the EU level. What is the most interesting and perhaps surprising finding? It was surprising the amount of contradictions present in most of the EU goals, targets and strategies that happens even on a declarative level. For example, the European social pillar is on one hand promoting the transition to open-ended contracts and prevention of all precarious forms of labour, but on the other hand under the same chapter is promoting flexible and innovative forms of work, which as we know historically were almost always precarious and opposed to workers' interests. Regarding the gender labour market inequalities, the EU main concern is closing the employment gap with quality of employment not being the question of equal importance, as was already mentioned. So high levels of in-work at-risk poverty, high shares of women working part-time due to care increases, high pension gaps all speak that the quality of employment should be the forefront of EU policies. Also, the minimum precéditions for closing or lowering gender gap in employment depend on higher investments in affordable childcare, which at the moment the current rate is not enough to reduce the weight of care work delegated to women. In 2016, the EU adopted its strategy to implement the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the same amongst all those things and guaranteeing gender equality and decent work with its SDGs 5 and 8. Catalina, has this step helped advance gender equality in the EU? Firstly, I'd like to address three issues regarding the Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs. First, those goals are set so wide that they almost lose their meaning, so the goal is ending all violence and discrimination against all women and girls by 2013, so that's an admirable goal, but it's not really easily achievable, especially when we take into account that it's not followed by any concrete plans. So that's the second problem. The SDGs have no policy measures attached to them, so even if there was a potential progress on SDGs, they will probably be a byproduct of some other developments in the specific countries or on the EU level. And the third, the indicators that are available for measuring the progress on the SDGs are not sufficient. So for example, the indicator measuring the physical and sexual violence, so the last data available is from 2012. So the designated indicator for measuring that part of the goal doesn't even allow us to measure any of the progress. The indicators for decent work don't include share of temporary work or share of precarious work, and we could argue that those are important indicators of decent work. Also, when measuring decent work, these indicators don't take into account the gender inequalities and vice-versa, so those are just some of the problems with measuring progress on SDGs. So when we look at the data, especially on the indicators we focused on in our report, from 2016 the gender employment gap stayed the same, but the share of inactive women due to caring responsibility has risen. And that's on the EU 27 level. We have to keep in mind that a lot of EU countries are far above those EU average. Right. So according to your analysis, has there been any progress as a result of integrating the SDGs into EU policy frameworks? From 2016 to 2020 is a really short period to give any definitive answers, but current developments are not giving us reason to be very hopeful, especially when we take into account consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic to the labour. As you mentioned, the UN 2030 goals serve as non-binding guidelines for political action. What legally binding guidelines or policy steps would have to be adopted at EU policy level in order to achieve real and lasting change towards gender equality? To name a few, since the burden of care work is the most important factor limiting women's opportunities in the labour market, some of the binding measures should deal with better leave policies and with the child care system. So one example of a binding measure would be that the European Union should standardize leave policies in line with existing research and good practices in some member states, named with the Scandinavian countries, which have the best leave policies. So the European Union should determine minimal leave benefits at the level of 80 to 100% of previous pay and also in order to encourage fathers to take or other parents to take parental leaves. The leaves should be non-transferable and well paid because otherwise men who in the average have higher wages would not have the incentive to take on the leaves. Another example is a binding measure regarding child care. So the European Union should address the questions of availability, duration and affordability of child care in its targets and policies and in order for the member states to increase child care capacities and secure legal entitlements to early childhood education and care for all children. Sufficient investments in these sectors must be made, possibly financed on the EU level. Then also some measures should deal with the quality of women's jobs. So when advocating for the work family reconciliation policies, part-time employment as an option for women should be approached with caution. These policies should stress the importance of union protection and making working conditions similar to those of full-time jobs because otherwise women are being trapped in low quality jobs. Also part-time employment should be used only as a temporary solution which should lead back or to full-time employment. Another example of a binding measure has to do with the current proposal of the new European directive on minimum wages. So trade unions at the national and EU levels should advocate not only for pay transparency as is currently the case but also for raising the level of wages in low-paid sectors and in so-called essential occupations where women often make the majority of employees. Thank you. To find out more and to access the full report including four country case studies, please visit our website at brosalux.eu. Thanks for watching.