The reality behind a stalled gender equality revolution

• Author: Publications Office
• Pages: 19-20

© Jacob Lund, Shutterstock

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The reality behind a stalled

gender equality revolution

e NEWFAMSTRAT project has le no stone unturned in its quest to identify the

remaining obstacles to gender equality.

In the 1960s, European and North American women’s demands

for liberation and emancipation was one of the defining social

movements of the age. They wanted equal rights to employment.

They asked for their children’s fathers to do their fair share in

unpaid family work.

Most of their revendications have since been met with progressive

measures such as equal education opportunities, paid maternity

leave, parental leave targeting fathers and narrowing gaps in

wages and domestic assignments. Yet, researchers continue to

claim that the gender revolution is incomplete, or even stalled.

So, what happened? Well, no one knows exactly.

NEWFAMSTRAT (The New Shape of Family-Related Gender

Stratification) was launched to find out. “We have been analysing

national data using advanced statistical techniques, as well

as collecting primary experimental data. We interrogate the

predictive power of economic theories, and then develop new

testable theories that better map modern gender relations,” says

Lynn Prince Cooke, professor of social policy at the University of

Bath and principal investigator of ERC-supported NEWFAMSTRAT.

The project, which runs until the end of 2021, looks at the

very structure of gender inequalities at the individual, couple,

organisational and societal levels. As gender relations are not

CORDIS Results Pack on gender frontier research

Advancing innovative ideas and perspectives on gender

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