ABSTRACT
This chapter places the discussion of equality and diversity policy within a wider context of social policy and societal attitudes across Europe. It explores the impact of social policy on employment equality and diversity and discusses the role that wider social attitudes play in perpetuating discriminatory practices in the labour market. The chapter shows the wide variation in approaches across Europe to a range of EDI-relevant issues including citizenship and immigration and welfare systems and different levels of welfare service provision. Across the EU, we can identify a worrying rise of racist groups, the continuation of a traditional gender regime and traditional views about gender roles, and highly varying attitudes towards homosexuality and gender identity. All of these impede the equality project. However, such developments will have greater or lesser effect on marginalised groups, depending on their intersection with state policy. It is clear that a variety of factors (including state welfare provisions, dominant political discourses, social and employment policy regimes, and history of immigration) in different national contexts result in different equality issues being prioritised. This indicates that different European countries attach different value to tackling the different dimensions of diversity or equality strands and to advancing inclusion.
