The local authorities’ role in disseminating gender equality. Evidence from Italy

Gori Elena, Romolini Alberto, Fissi Silvia

The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), born in 2010 in order to contribute and to strengthen the promotion of gender equality, is an autonomous body of the European Union (EIGE, 2015a). It aims to become the Europe’s knowledge center on gender equality by collecting knowledge and by sharing useful experiences and expertise. Its activities focuses mainly on supporting gender mainstreaming in all EU and national policies in order to decrease gender discrimination (EU, 2006). Within the gender equality approach, the strategy and the tools used to promote gender equality are known as “gender mainstreaming” (EIGE, 2015b). For EU countries, the progress in gender equality is due mainly to the adoption of EU directives and to the use of EU funds inspired to gender mainstreaming theory. In 2013 the EIGE developed the Gender Equality Index as a unique measurement tool that summarizes the complexity of gender equality into a user-friendly and easily interpretable measure (EIGE, 2015c). The Gender Equality Index’s result has been designed for policymakers in the European Union as it is based on the EU policy framework. The Gender Equality Index 2015 provides results for all Member States and the EU as a whole, on domain and sub-domain levels. The index shows a slight advance in gender equality between 2005 and 2012: the score for the 28 Member States rises from 51.2 in 2005 to 52.9 (out of 100) in 2012. […]

Key-Words: Amministrazioni pubbliche