European Trade Union Committee for Education

In view of sharing knowledge and experience to enhance women's working conditions and gender equality, ETUI (the European Trade Union Institute) invited experts, trade union representatives and other stakeholders dealing with occupational health and safety and equal opportunities to its international conference on 4 to 6 March 2015 in Brussels. The participants discussed issues like the impact of gender and age on working life and structural causes of health inequalities between women and men. The conference showed that occupations in Europe are still segregated by gender. Therefore it is crucial that social partners and member states address gender inequality at the workplace in connection to the assessment of occupational health and safety risks to ensure the prevention of occupational hazards of all workers.

As a result of gender segregation at the workplace, women in work suffer from different health problems than men. The workplaces in which women predominantly work, e.g. administration, education, health care sector, etc., have different hazards than typical male-dominated blue-collar workplaces. Blue and white-collar work need to be addressed differently, in order to tackle work hazards. In addition, studies show that sexual harassment has a direct negative impact on worker's psychological health and women are more exposed to sexual harassment at the workplace than men. 

Find more information on the event here.