This publication contains the final report of the project ‘From Welfare to Knowfare. A European Approach to Employment and Gender Mainstreaming in the Knowledge based society’, whose work has primarily contributed to the area ‘The challenge of socioeconomic development models for Europe ’. The report contains information about the main scientific findings of WELLKNOW and their policy implications. The research was carried out by eight teams over a period of 36 months, starting in 1 December, 2002. The abstract and executive summary presented in this edition offer the reader an overview of the main scientific and policy conclusions, before the main body of the research provided in the other chapters of this report. As the results of the projects financed under the Key Action become available to the scientific and policy communities, Priority 7 ‘Citizens and Governance in a Knowledgebased society’ of the Sixth Framework Programme is building on the progress already made and aims at making a further contribution to the development of a European Research Area in the social sciences and the humanities.

Upon request by the FEMM Committee, this note provides an overview of the gender-equality legislation and policies in Germany, focussing on their recent developments and achievements. It reviews gender equality in decision-making, in employment, reconciliation of private and professional life, strategies to combat violence against women and sexual and reproductive health rights. Germany has achieved some progress in gender equality, mainly in the area of employment. European legislation has acted as the main driver for legal improvements in equal treatment and anti-discrimination.

This study is a contribution to the debate on gender in education from the Eurydice Network, as requested by the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union for the second half of 2009. The initial idea was to examine to what extent and in what ways gender inequality in educational attainment was an issue of concern in European countries. Although the situation has changed radically in the last decades regarding participation rates in education, gender differences persist in both attainment and choice of courses of study. The study therefore examines whether such disparities have led to policy initiatives such as proposals for changes in laws and other regulations relating to education, national surveys, projects or any other kind of official measures focusing on gender. The study also attempts to provide a mapping of the policies and strategies in place across Europe to tackle gender inequalities in education systems today. The study contains a review of the research literature on gender and education and summarises the main findings from international performance surveys on gender differences in education. It provides secondary analyses of PISA data mostly focusing on the variation of achievement by gender. The comparative overview of policies and measures in place in European countries with respect to gender equality in education forms the main part of the report. The study discusses legislative and policy frameworks for gender equality in education, distinguishing the main gender equality concerns. Specific examples are given to illustrate the extent to which European countries have been implementing concrete policy measures that target gender inequalities in education.

Women around the world are less present than men in formal labour markets. In 2007 the proportion of women active in the global labour market was 53% compared to 78% of men, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO, 2010). This state of affairs comes at a time when women have greater access to education and are achieving far more once they get there than ever before. There is a positive link between education and employment ; the more educated you are, the better are your chances on the labour market. However for many women, this has not proved to be the case and around the world women are still struggling to translate their progress in the sphere of education into tangible benefits on the labour market. Nowhere is this more true than in the countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean region where female labour force participation rates – 23% on average - are the lowest in the world. In Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia, the three countries studied in this report, the gender gap in education has been reduced or even, in the case of Tunisia, reversed but female activity rates remain stubbornly low at 22%, 23% and 26% respectively (ILO, 2010).