Women’s citizenship in Europe: still the more fragile one
1 April 2008 - 3 April 2008
Denmark
On 1 - 3 April 2008, this conference brought together discussions about the genesis of a thin European social citizenship and issues of care – whether paid or unpaid – in the context of welfare states. Researchers discussed empirical tendencies towards Europeanization of welfare using feminist perspectives and theories on citizenship. Alhough scientific, the conference highlighted practical use of theoretical concepts. Applied theories can help policy makers to understand various processes taking place at different levels of our European society.
Women and Catholicism in Poland
Agnieszka Pasieka and Kinga Sekerdej from Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology presented the starting point for their upcoming one-year anthropological research about women and Catholicism in Poland. “We will be comparing rural and urban setting and looking at women actively engaged in church based activities, as well as local forms of civil society. The reason for focusing on the Church is, among others, that it has been commonly viewed as a serious actor in the process of democratization and inciting the civil society in pre-transformation Poland,” researchers explain. They are mainly interested in everyday relations on a local level to publicly active women, who – in their view – are quite often left out of the debate on civil society in Poland. “We hope to prove that the activities often considered ‘feminine matters’ are definitely relevant for the wider society and, at the same time, point out that feminine does matter for the understanding of citizenship,” Agniezka Pasieka and Kinga Sekerdej conclude.
Romanian Immigrants in Spain and Italy
Michaela Cocescu is a Ph.D. candidate at National School of Political Studies and Public Administration Bucharest. She analyzes the status of the Romanian immigrants to Spain and Italy in the context of Romania’s adhesion to the E.U. She considers the process of migration as a process of losing and regaining the citizenship: “This phenomenon occurs by the temporarily and spatial loss of the rights that descend from the Romanian citizen status and by the new status acquired in the destination country: that of immigrant, non-citizen.” According to Cocescu, most of studies regarding the situation of the immigrants focus on the causes of migration and on the study of the immigrations networks but neglect the status of the immigrants and of female immigrants in particular. That’s why Michaela Cocescu introduces a new concept of negative feminization of the immigrants: “This concept aims to explain the transformations of the Romanian immigrants in the host countries in non-citizens, in vulnerable and peripheral members of their new societies, waiting for the employers, the state or the European Union to recognize their rights as humans, as employees and as European citizens after 2007.”
Concepts influencing Finnish policy texts
Kirsi Eräranta, a PhD student at University of Helsinki, analyzed the politics of citizenship in Finland by examining policy texts on reconciliation of work and family life from 1980s to 2000s. “In Finland, the discourse is more about care than paid work obligations, which might be in contrast to some other European countries,” specifies Eräranta. Her analysis indicates that, beside the Nordic ‘social democratic’ tradition of citizenship, two other conceptions of citizenship appear in the problematization of social care in Finland: “First, a liberal tradition of citizenship, emphasizing social and consumer rights and the freedom of choice of individual citizens, seems to have intensified in the policy texts gradually during all the three decades. Second, a communitarian tradition of citizenship, articulating civic virtues, duties and citizenship obligations to the citizenship community, especially the family, appears to have gained strength latest at the turn of the millennium.”
Domestic work and employment strategy
Dr. Majda Hrženjak, a sociologist from Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies in Slovenia, analyses how care and paid work can be reorganized. Domestic unpaid work – such as care – is traditionally carried out by women. “Eradication of the undeclared work has become a priority within the employment strategy but less attention has been focused on the sectors where the undeclared work of women is really high, such as domestic workers,” points out Hrženjak. An increasing number of EU policy makers think that this work could be transformed into regular jobs, which would make the work official and it would also extend the job market by creating new jobs. But according to Hrženjak, this seemingly simple and obvious link produces several practical challenges. “Although paid domestic work provides a comprehensive category of employees on the global scale, there are no international standards to regulate their salaries and working conditions,” Hrženjak says. Furthermore, a simple transformation of unpaid work into typically part-time jobs does not automatically combat discrimination. “Part-time work doesn’t provide sufficient income to have economic autonomy and provides less social security rights. It must also be acknowledged that many part-time working women actually want to work full time,” Hrženjak signalizes. Part-time work is considered to be the solution for the reconciliation of work and family life, and is considered to be an issue that mainly concerns women. But as Hrženjak indicates, “such a view strongly limits women’s choices in the labour market and influences the unequal sharing of family responsibilities between women and men.”
Women and Catholicism in Poland
Agnieszka Pasieka and Kinga Sekerdej from Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology presented the starting point for their upcoming one-year anthropological research about women and Catholicism in Poland. “We will be comparing rural and urban setting and looking at women actively engaged in church based activities, as well as local forms of civil society. The reason for focusing on the Church is, among others, that it has been commonly viewed as a serious actor in the process of democratization and inciting the civil society in pre-transformation Poland,” researchers explain. They are mainly interested in everyday relations on a local level to publicly active women, who – in their view – are quite often left out of the debate on civil society in Poland. “We hope to prove that the activities often considered ‘feminine matters’ are definitely relevant for the wider society and, at the same time, point out that feminine does matter for the understanding of citizenship,” Agniezka Pasieka and Kinga Sekerdej conclude.
Romanian Immigrants in Spain and Italy
Michaela Cocescu is a Ph.D. candidate at National School of Political Studies and Public Administration Bucharest. She analyzes the status of the Romanian immigrants to Spain and Italy in the context of Romania’s adhesion to the E.U. She considers the process of migration as a process of losing and regaining the citizenship: “This phenomenon occurs by the temporarily and spatial loss of the rights that descend from the Romanian citizen status and by the new status acquired in the destination country: that of immigrant, non-citizen.” According to Cocescu, most of studies regarding the situation of the immigrants focus on the causes of migration and on the study of the immigrations networks but neglect the status of the immigrants and of female immigrants in particular. That’s why Michaela Cocescu introduces a new concept of negative feminization of the immigrants: “This concept aims to explain the transformations of the Romanian immigrants in the host countries in non-citizens, in vulnerable and peripheral members of their new societies, waiting for the employers, the state or the European Union to recognize their rights as humans, as employees and as European citizens after 2007.”
Concepts influencing Finnish policy texts
Kirsi Eräranta, a PhD student at University of Helsinki, analyzed the politics of citizenship in Finland by examining policy texts on reconciliation of work and family life from 1980s to 2000s. “In Finland, the discourse is more about care than paid work obligations, which might be in contrast to some other European countries,” specifies Eräranta. Her analysis indicates that, beside the Nordic ‘social democratic’ tradition of citizenship, two other conceptions of citizenship appear in the problematization of social care in Finland: “First, a liberal tradition of citizenship, emphasizing social and consumer rights and the freedom of choice of individual citizens, seems to have intensified in the policy texts gradually during all the three decades. Second, a communitarian tradition of citizenship, articulating civic virtues, duties and citizenship obligations to the citizenship community, especially the family, appears to have gained strength latest at the turn of the millennium.”
Domestic work and employment strategy
Dr. Majda Hrženjak, a sociologist from Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies in Slovenia, analyses how care and paid work can be reorganized. Domestic unpaid work – such as care – is traditionally carried out by women. “Eradication of the undeclared work has become a priority within the employment strategy but less attention has been focused on the sectors where the undeclared work of women is really high, such as domestic workers,” points out Hrženjak. An increasing number of EU policy makers think that this work could be transformed into regular jobs, which would make the work official and it would also extend the job market by creating new jobs. But according to Hrženjak, this seemingly simple and obvious link produces several practical challenges. “Although paid domestic work provides a comprehensive category of employees on the global scale, there are no international standards to regulate their salaries and working conditions,” Hrženjak says. Furthermore, a simple transformation of unpaid work into typically part-time jobs does not automatically combat discrimination. “Part-time work doesn’t provide sufficient income to have economic autonomy and provides less social security rights. It must also be acknowledged that many part-time working women actually want to work full time,” Hrženjak signalizes. Part-time work is considered to be the solution for the reconciliation of work and family life, and is considered to be an issue that mainly concerns women. But as Hrženjak indicates, “such a view strongly limits women’s choices in the labour market and influences the unequal sharing of family responsibilities between women and men.”