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#InternationalWomensDay: ETUC calls on men and women 'to break glass walls'

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broken glass

On International Women’s Day (8 March) the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) calls on men and women to break the glass walls that segregate the sexes in different occupations at work and to reach more gender equality in the labour market.  

According to ETUC, Women continue to be held back

  • not only by glass ceilings that stop them rising up the work hierarchy,
  • but also by glass walls that segregate women into particular jobs and shut them out of others.

The figures are stark

  • 4% of drivers, building workers and mechanics are women;
  • 18% of engineering and computing professionals are women;
  • 80% of teaching and healthcare professionals are women;
  • women outnumber men in the so-called '5Cs' occupations: catering, cleaning, caring, clerical and cashiering;
  • 4% of CEOs of listed companies are women and only some 22% of supervisory boards’ members are women.

In the five years 2005-2010 gender segregation of jobs increased across Europe, says the ETUC.

“We must break the glass walls. Women are overrepresented in occupations that offer lower wages than jobs predominantly carried out by men, which mainly explains the average 16% gender pay gap across Europe. More should be done to enable women to enter, stay and progress in occupations that are male-dominated. At the same time wages and conditions need to be improved in female dominated sectors,” said Luca Visentini, ETUC General Secretary.

“No country in Europe is free from gender segregation at work – there are glass ceilings and walls that separate us. This is bad for women and men. Talent is being wasted, literally on an industrial scale. Ending gender segregation at work should be of one the priorities of a EU Strategy on gender equality that still has not materialized, despite the unions’ calls,”said Montserrat Mir, ETUC Confederal Secretary.

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The ETUC is currently collecting good practices by trade unions which were successful in providing for solutions, including through collective bargaining.

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