What are the 4equality priorities and why is it important? Keep reading to see.
Current youth generation is eager to take control of their lives, they are better educated than ever and are more active in political and social arena (53% engagement) (EU Youth Strategy). But, more than ever it faces inclusion challenges within the economic sector, due to uncertainties linked to technological changes, demographic trends, discrimination, social exclusion and populism. Already pre-Covid and pre-invasion on Ukraine, first time since World War II, today’s young had been at risk of being less well off than their parents, with 29% of 16-29 years olds being at risk of poverty and social exclusion (EU 2018). The challenge is even more severe for women. Even though more young women than men in EU graduate from universities (Women's situation in the labour market, EU, 2022), their access to job market is more limited, with 12.6% EU gender employment gap (CEDEFOP 2022). More, the access to job market declined during Covid especially for women and young people (OECD 2022). While women in general face strong barriers in job market access related to gender bias and perceived negative impact of commonly higher engagement into unpaid care responsibilities, it’s young women that are on average 2 to 3 times more likely to be unemployed than older adults (ILO 2021). While such gender inequalities are broadly recognised, and especially present in male-dominated areas, as business and STEM, women studying or training to work in those sectors aren't being prepared to deal with the job market discriminative behaviours.
Skills4equality looks to equip young women looking to work in male-dominated areas (business & STEM) and supporting them youth sector with tools for developing key skills for building women capability to overcome bias and intolerance in the job market and in professional settings; to overcome the barriers they are facing in access to productive employment allowing full capitalisation on their competences, protecting them from negative impact of the gender discrimination at the stage of joining the job market, as well as further on to avoid lack of integration into work environment, need to acquire masculine norms of behaviours to survive in male dominated jobs, or leave their career path toward less discriminative work sector (catalyst.org). By addressing the needs of young women preparing to enter the job market for tools and competences that will help them understand the challenge ahead, and build proper responses and strategies to minimise the impact of gender discrimination on their access to jobs and on quality of professional life, the project looks to support young women in marginalisation risk in effective transfer from youth to adulthood. To aid them, tools for youth workers will build their capacity to reach young women in discrimination risk, to build awareness of future business and STEAM professionals of the issues and ability to create women inclusive environment and support women in coping with discriminative reality.
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