The gendered consequences of the European Union's pensions policy

SynopsisThe purpose of this special issue is to analyze the unintended gendered consequences of European Union policies that may appear to be gender neutral. This article explores pensions policy, an issue that entered onto the political agenda in recent decades due to demographic trends and concerns regarding the financial sustainability of public pensions. Consequently, the EU and its member states have implemented a number of pension reforms that seek to decrease state responsibility and increase individual responsibility. The implications of these seemingly gender-neutral reforms are negative for the majority of women, as they favor male work patterns and disadvantage female work patterns, including part-time and temporary work, as well as time taken out of the labor market for caring and other domestic responsibilities. As a result, I argue that the current wave of pension reforms in the EU have gendered consequences that are particularly negative for the majority of women.