Gender mainstreaming in the enlarged European Union: recent developments in the European employment strategy and Social Inclusion Process

The European Union (EU) has an explicit commitment to raise the employment rate for women and to advance gender mainstreaming (GM) and gender equality in both employment and social inclusion policies. In this article we assess developments in the latest round of National Action Plans (NAPs), with particular attention to the situations in the 10 new member states. GM continues to be patchy and inadequate, with a similarly narrow focus in both ‘old’ and ‘new’ member states. After enlargement, the greater diversity of national situations in conjunction with ongoing reforms to EU policy frameworks create new challenges for GM.