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40 years of the Munich Equal Opportunities Office: Progress and challenges!
Munich celebrates 40 years of equal opportunities office: The aim is equal opportunities for women. Nicole Lassal leads important measures for improvement.
40 years of the Munich Equal Opportunities Office: Progress and challenges!
Munich is celebrating a remarkable anniversary: the city has been promoting equality between women and men for 40 years. The Equal Opportunities Office was established in 1985 by a city council resolution and pursues the important goal of bringing about changes in order to enforce the constitutional requirement of equality for women. “We want to promote equality in work, family and society,” explains Nicole Lassal, who has headed the office for a decade. The 54-year-old political scientist, who has four adult daughters herself, leads a team of twelve employees who share nine full-time positions, which enables a dynamic and flexible work approach. That's what she reports South German newspaper.
The successes of the equality body are obvious when you look at the data from the city of Munich's employees: with around 40,000 employees, the city is showing progress in corporate equality, especially in management positions. Although the Equal Opportunities Act of 1998 has strengthened women's participation, the gender pay gap remains high. It is currently 18%, despite a decline of 23%, and is particularly pronounced in traditional sectors such as the automotive industry. There is a lot of potential for further improvements here, which are urgently needed, because women are only represented by a quarter in the Bavarian state parliament, while the proportion of women in the Munich city council is an impressive 50% hallo-muenchen.de reported.
Challenges and action plan
But the challenges are far from being overcome. In particular, the compatibility of family and work as well as the issue of gender-specific violence continue to represent major hurdles. In order to actively address these problems, a comprehensive action plan with 33 concrete measures was developed. “Among other things, we offer self-assertion courses at schools and are planning to open another women’s shelter,” says Lassal. It is extremely important that the Equal Opportunities Office is involved in all relevant personnel matters and city council proposals on equality issues.
If you look at the general situation in the German labor market, it becomes clear that women are still disadvantaged. A current study by the Institute of Economics and Social Sciences shows that inequality exists in almost all sectors. For example, women earn less than their male colleagues in 45 of 46 industries examined. The gender pay gap varies greatly depending on the industry, with sometimes dramatic differences. While women make up 80% of the healthcare workforce, we see less than 30% of women in the industry Böckler Foundation determines.
Equality remains a central issue that requires long-term efforts and a good hand. Because only together can we help ensure that women and men in our society finally have equal opportunities - in the professional world as well as in private life.