Summary of the impact

Research on gender inequalities at the University of Manchester (UoM) has informed and shaped the development of employment policies advocated by key national and international bodies — such as the United Nations' International Labour Organization (ILO), the European Commission (EC), Eurofound and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) — in their role as advisors of national governments and regulators. Impacts are twofold. By advancing international comparative analyses of gender inequalities in employment and job quality, EU employment policy has been informed. By analysing gender inequality trends, alongside evolving national policies, the research has successfully steered key debates around both `working-time' and `work-life balance'.

Underpinning research

The research was undertaken when Professor Colette Fagan (1998-date) was a member and Co-Director (2004-10) — with Professor Jill Rubery (1993-) and Professor Damian Grimshaw (1994-) — of UoM's interdisciplinary European Work and Employment Research Centre (EWERC). Insights on gender equality in employment were generated in two academically distinct areas:

(1) A more differentiated conceptualisation of part-time work and working-time arrangements, through an in-depth consideration of working-time and `work-life balance' policies:

• Demonstrating a widespread mismatch in working-time preferences and practices for both sexes across all countries, and challenging the stereotyped gender assumptions which have prevailed in working-time policy debates. Many men as well as women would like to work substantial part-time hours working hours (e.g. 75% of a full-time position) at points in their life course, while many part-timers would like to increase their hours [C].
• Identifying important distinctions between `marginal' and `integrated' part-time employment which are key to monitoring the quality of part-time work. This redirects policy debate towards the conditions under which (integrated) part-time work can both enhance work-family reconciliation options, and advance gender equality in employment. International comparisons provide evidence of the policies necessary to generate integrated rather than marginal forms of part-time working [C][E].
• Providing a multi-dimensional analysis of working-time arrangements — volume, schedule, predictability, personal autonomy, etc. This extends policy understandings in several areas: job quality for both part-time and full-time workers; how to best design working-time arrangements which improve the alignment between workers' needs and organizational requirements; and the salient indicators required for policy monitoring purposes [B][C].

(2) By promoting an international comparative analysis, the research demonstrates that:

• The design and evaluation of gender equality and gender mainstreaming policies must take into account the national context. Moreover, the nature of gender inequalities in employment is connected to the national configuration of employment, family and social protection policies — so called `gender regimes' [D][E].
• Women's jobs are inferior on many, but not all, dimensions of job quality. Some indicators of job quality need updating to properly capture working conditions in female-dominated service jobs; and a more nuanced assessment of job quality (addressing different dimensions of job quality) is necessary to monitor trends in gender inequalities [B].

Quotas are an effective means of increasing women's representation at corporate board level providing they are well-designed. However, there is no clear evidence that gender diversity at board level improves business performance, and many women in the recruitment pool for these posts are opposed to quotas [A].

References to the research

(all references available upon request — AUR)

Research was supported by ~£260K of research grants. Examples include the ERSC `Fairness at Work' Seminar Series (2009-11), the European Commission (2004-) and the EU Framework Programme (DYNAMO, 2004-7).

Details of the impact

Pathways: The research has informed, galvanised and shaped European-level policy formation, around (i) working-time and `work-life balance', and (ii) policies to advance gender equality in employment and the labour market. Impacts were achieved through:

• Expert appointments working with the EC, ILO and other influential international policy bodies, engaged in employment policy formation and evaluation.
• Widely disseminated official research reports, bolstered by high profile speaking engagements for European policy makers, national government representatives and others.
• The coordination of an expert academic network, appointed to advise the EC's Equal Opportunities Unit.
• Through consultancy work. Since 1998, Fagan has completed 11 consultancies informed by the research, with total payments to UoM > £80K, from the EC and its policy institutes (Eurofound, the European Institute for Gender Equality), the ILO, the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) and the UK Trades Union Congress (TUC). Since 2004 Fagan has been contracted as a coordinating member for the EC's Expert Group on Gender and Employment.

Impact 1: Informing and shaping the European policy framework for working-time and work-life balance, including the working-time dimension of the ILO's `Decent Work' policy:

• From 2000-date Fagan has prepared a range of international policy reports based on her research for the UN's International Labour Organization (2003-2012), the OECD (2006), the EC (2010) and Eurofound, the tripartite European Union agency that provides policy-oriented expertise on living and working conditions, industrial relations and managing change in Europe (2000-2007).
• Fagan prepared three international policy-orientated research reports (2003, 2011 & 2013), for the ILO. As a Senior ILO Research Officer attests: "Both the empirical results and the policy recommendations contained in Fagan's reports have influenced the ILO's working time, work organization, and gender equality policy advice to governments, trade unions and employers' associations." It was also noted that the research subsequently published as [C] "contributed to the creation of the ILO's `Five Dimensions of Decent Working Time' policy framework, which has provided the foundation for the ILO's policy advice and advocacy work in the working time domain over the last decade." Finally, Fagan's key contribution to the ILO's 2011 Tripartite Meeting of Experts (TME) on Working-time Arrangements, the first convened in two decades, was noted. She prepared one of three background research papers — the others addressing health and safety, and productivity — with "the TME unanimously adopting a set of conclusions, `Working Time in the Twenty-first Century', that was endorsed by the ILO Governing Body in March 2012 and now forms the basis of all of the ILO's work on working time. These Conclusions are currently being implemented in the `Global Product of Working Time in the Twenty-first Century', designed to strengthen both the ILO's research on working time, and its policy advice and technical assistance to constituents on developing better working time arrangements... the positive evaluation of Professor Fagan's TME background report led to her invitation, under selective tender, to prepare one of the six major outputs for the `Global Product...' during the ILO's 2012-2013 Biennium, a research paper on international trends in part-time working conditions" [1].
• Fagan was commissioned by the EC to prepare an `awareness-raising' briefing [2] about the policies and institutional factors which are conducive to increasing men's involvement in care work. Previously, Fagan authored or co-authored seven influential Eurofound reports that analysed gender differences in working-time and working conditions, using specially designed surveys commissioned to stimulate policy debate and to inform Eurofound's written and verbal policy briefings to their European tripartite constituency [3].
• Fagan's working-time and work-family reconciliation research is also cited in support of policy recommendations made in high-level official documents and reports by the ILO, Eurofound and similar organisations engaged with European employment policy formation [4].
• Fagan's profile has led to numerous follow-up invitations, to provide advice on working-time policy and gender equality to national/federal governments in Spain, Austria and Finland, and prepared briefing papers for trade union associations (ETUI, TUC) and employers' associations (e.g. the European Chemical Industry).

Impact 2: Shaping the orientation of European policy design and monitoring, in relation to gender inequalities in employment and job quality:

• Through over a decade of research and advisory work for Eurofound, Fagan has helped to strengthen the gender perspective in the monitoring of working conditions, and steer and re-invigorate debates about conceptualising and measuring job quality dimensions. As Eurofound confirm: "recommendations for working-time and work-life balance policies designed to advance gender equality... have informed and shaped the direction of Eurofound's reporting and policy recommendations... and policies to advance gender equality in employment and the labour market... [R]esults and recommendations contained in Fagan's reports for Eurofound have influenced policy debate amongst governments, trade unions and employers' associations as well as the European institutions" [3].
• As an invited expert on gender inequalities Fagan contributed to Eurofound's academic expert workshop which advised on: questionnaire development for the second wave of the European Company Survey (2007); a new approach to conceptualising and measuring job quality (2011); and questionnaire development for the sixth wave of the European Working Conditions Survey (2013). In June 2013 Fagan accepted an invitation to join the Eurofound Advisory Committee on Working Conditions [3].
• Via collaboration in the EC `Network of European Academic Experts on Gender and Employment', Fagan has helped shape the orientation of the EC's gender equality and gender mainstreaming approach for employment policy, collaborating in the network (2004-), and as the UK academic expert (2008-). As the Head of the EC Equality Unit notes, this contribution: "included the design and execution of a programme of national and international comparative research across EU member states and EFTA countries in order to inform the Commission's gender quality and employment policies, and evaluations of national policy developments and labour market trends... [and] the analytical institutional framework which they have applied to the analysis of gender inequality has continued to underpin and inform the European Commission's gender equality and gender mainstreaming work with the Member States in policy developments and assessments of the subsequent stages of the EES, including under the present `Europe 2020' strategy" [5].
• Since 2004, Fagan's research has provided the basis for over twenty reports and briefings on gender inequalities and policy developments in the UK, prepared by the network for the EC's internal use, as well as invited contributions to high level policy workshops initiated by the EC and European Presidency conferences. The EC uses these documents to monitor developments and to inform bilateral dialogue and recommendations made to the UK government, through the annual round of reporting on national policy (the National Reform Programmes for Employment) under the `Open Method of Coordination' (OMC). These are, in turn, used as a basis for the gender equality assessments included in the employment and social inclusion reports presented to the annual EC Presidency Summits.
• Alongside EWERC colleagues, Fagan directly assisted the EC to develop employment policy indicators and gender mainstreaming tools which are fundamental features of the EC's approach to employment policy coordination. This has included preparing a background report for the EC which informed the development of the official gender equality employment statistical indicators for monitoring European Employment Policy [6], which remain in use to this day. As a member of the Bureau of European Policy Advisors (and previous head of the EC Equality Unit) confirms: "the coordination reports and associated academic publications written by Rubery, Fagan, Grimshaw developed an international comparative analysis of gender inequalities that attended to the varying institutional configurations found in different national settings, through a focus on how labour markets, welfare states and family systems interact to shape gender relations and inequalities" [7]. The Head of the EC Equality Unit similarly notes that Fagan and EWERC colleagues: "helped to broaden the European Commission's perspective with respect both to gender equality and to employment policy... [and] were centrally involved in the development of frameworks for gender mainstreaming employment policy and in actively monitoring its implementation through their assessments of the member states' National Action Plans (and subsequently the National Reform Programmes) from a gender perspective. This led to the development in 2008 by the European Commission of a manual on gender mainstreaming based on the work of the EGGE network and issued as a guide for member states which is still widely used today and remains the key gender mainstreaming tool promoted on our web site" [5]. Notably, Fagan's own research is referenced in the manual [8].
• Fagan's research on quotas as a tool for improving gender diversity at corporate board level has been used to maintain the momentum in the political debate on this topic [A]. It was referenced in policy documents prepared by the EC and by the Women's Rights' Committee of the European Parliament, and is one of ten listed resources on the European Parliament Libraries recommended reading list on this topic for MEPs. In March 2013, Fagan was invited to present her research and policy recommendations to a workshop organised for the European Parliament by the Women's Rights' Committee and the Legal Committee, as part of the ongoing debate about the potential introduction of quota legislation. This was subsequently published as a European Parliament policy briefing [9]. It has been used by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) as a key evidence base for its policy on quotas. As their research and policy managers corroborate: "The EHRC has engaged with Fagan about her research and its policy implications [and] used the research evidence in [A] to inform our position on gender issues in management, including in responding to government consultations and dealing with internal and external inquiries on this subject" [10].

Sources to corroborate the impact

(all claims referenced in the text)

[1] Testimonial from Senior Research Officer, Conditions of Work and Equality Division, International Labour Organization (26^th August 2013, emphasis in original); Testimonial cites (2012) Fagan, C. et al `The influence of Working Time Arrangements on Work-Life Integration or `Balance': A Review of the International Evidence' ILO Working Paper

[2] (2010) Fagan, C. `Analysis Note: Men and Gender Equality — Tackling Gender Segregated Family Roles and Social Care Jobs' EC

[3] Testimonial from, Head of Unit, Working Conditions and Industrial Relations, Eurofound (18^th October 2013, includes list of Fagan's Eurofound Publications)

[4] List of cited reports, summarising research, prepared for: the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), the TUC (UK), the OECD, Japanese Institute for Labour Policy and Training, etc.

[5] Testimonial from Head of Equality Unit, DG Justice, EC (9^th July 2013)

[6] (2002) Rubery, J. et al `Indicators on Gender Equality in the European Employment Strategy' Equal Opportunities Unit, EC, Expert Group of Gender and Employment & (2000) Rubery, J. & Fagan, C. `Gender Impact Assessment and European Employment Policy', EC

[7] Testimonial from Policy Advisor, BEPA, European Commission (5^th July 2013)

[8] (2008) European Commission `Manual for Gender Mainstreaming: Employment, Social Inclusion and Social Protection Policies' EC (section 3, pp. 11,13)

[9] (2013) Fagan, C. `Women on Corporate Boards in Europe' (March); European Parliament Libraries Recommended Reading List

[10] Testimonial from Policy & Research Managers, Equality and Human Rights Commission (17^th October 2013)