ABSTRACT
To conclude this volume we apply the conceptual frameworks proposed in Part 1 to provide a comparative analysis of the immediate, unfurling and potential long-term impacts of the financial crisis and subsequent austerity policies on gender equality. To provide the context for understanding these effects we first explore the evolution of the gender regimes before the crisis in the case study countries. The second part summarizes how women and men have so far fared in the crisis and musters the evidence on both the emerging austerity policies and labour market trends to assess how they may fare in the future. The final section considers the longer-run implications of austerity policies and associated institutional changes for gender inequalities and the gender regimes. The key argument made is that although gender equality defined in the narrow sense of closing aggregate gender gaps in employment indicators may even have improved in the first phase of the recession, there are three core reasons why future prospects are bleak. First, much of the apparent progress in closing gender gaps has been achieved only by a levelling down of men's employment position and prospects; second, the full implementation of austerity plans is likely to harm women's employment position more than men's; and third, and most importantly, the pursuit of gender equality as a socially progressive agenda is being put into question by the reinforcement of neo-liberal policies that extend the market into all areas of activity and threaten to reverse pre-crisis trends towards greater social investment and de-familialization of care in the European country cases. These policies are affecting men as well as women. As such, not only does more common cause need to be made across the gender divide but gender equality has to be placed at the centre of any progressive plan for a route out of the crisis.
