Monthly Research Reports

The present report explores the role of women in the working environment, focusing on academia and research, the role of women in leading positions, gender pay-gaps, and on maternity rights. Women play a role in the world economy and in the geopolitical system primarily as undervalued labourers — domestic workers, diplomats’ and politicians’ wives, and agricultural workers. It is important to underline that women represent half of the world population, and it is a lost opportunity to not fully
draw upon the talents and capacities of half of humanity.

The present report is divided into four different sections. The first section explores the gender gap in academia and research, emphasising how, despite the increased presence of women in the academia over the years, women still face significant levels of discrimination. The section continues exploring the gap between men and women in higher positions in academia, initiatives by the European Union (EU) to eliminate this disparity, and the discrimination that women face in higher education institutions.
Next, the report proceeds with the second section, where the realities of gender pay gaps are discussed alongside the factors contributing to the gender pay gap in Europe, its impact on women, and the actions taken to address this issue. Research shows that the gender pay gap is influenced by a number of factors, including occupational segregation, discrimination, and women’s disproportionate responsibility for caregiving. In fact, this “duty” is very important when it comes to maternity rights, which is the focus of the third section. While some countries in Europe regulate parental leave without distinguishing entitlements allocated to mothers or fathers, most states offer different regimes based on the parent’s , with paternity leave schemes only having been introduced in recent years, sometimes still considered as a taboo. This is resulting in the choice of part-time —and therefore lower-paying— jobs for women. Finally, the fourth section sheds light on media discrimination against women and the
impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women’s opportunities to advance in their professional careers. In its final part, this unit discusses key events and initiatives adopted on the European stage aimed at boosting women’s access to leadership roles and their empowerment.

There are numerous definitions of the notion of ‘Populism,’ a concept that is often difficult to capture.
In his review of Benjamin Moffit’s ‘Global rise of Populism’, Kaçar (2017) argues how the notion
of populism has changed over time, modifying its nature, contents and focal points, theorising
contemporary populism as a political style “encompassing an appeal to ‘the people’ versus ‘the elite’,
‘bad manners’, and crisis, breakdown, or threat”.

In Populism: A Very Short Introduction, Cas Mudde defines populism as “the idea that society is
separated into two groups at odds with one another – “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite”
(Molloy, 2018). Mudde also reported that
most successful populists today are on the right, particularly the radical right […] Politicians like
Marine Le Pen in France, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, and Donald Trump in the US, combine populism
with [anti-immigrant] nativism and authoritarianism (Mudde as cited by Molloy, 2018).

The present report aspires to shed some light on the increasing connections between the global
phenomenon of populism and the spread of racist sentiments, stressing how these two phenomena often
go hand in hand. Again, Mudde’s conceptualisation of populism is helpful for a better understanding
of the relationship between populism and racism. The opposition between the “pure people” and
the “corrupt elite” is at the very basis of the common discontent that commonly affects a nation.

The discourses of populists lie around the presence of external or internal others who engage in the
plunging fortunes of the “honest people” (Rattansi, 2020). It is in this context that racism has its roots:
the idea that minorities, immigrants, refugees, economic migrants, or LGBTQIA+ communities are
behind a nation’s discontent, resulting in the creation of “policies, behaviours, rules, etc. that result in
a continued unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race”
(The Cambridge Dictionary).

After this brief introduction to the concept of populism and racism, the present report starts with the
regions of eastern and South-Eastern Europe, where the presence of populists and the spread of racism
is rooted in the history of the regions themselves, as they were divided into numerous multi-ethnic
empires. Later, the second section discusses Southern Europe, where the populist discourses of Italy
and Greece are explored in connection with the notion of racist behaviours. Section three sheds light on
South-Western Europe, where Spain and Portugal developed far-right populist factions very recently
– unlike other European countries that have had far-right parties since the 1980s. Afterwards, the
chapter on Western Europe explores the spreading of right-wing and populist governments amongst
countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Belgium. The fifth
section investigates how central European countries such as Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic
– i.e.: post-communist areas) are witnessing significant levels of democratic backsliding, with many
attributing it to the spread of populism. Lastly, the report delves into the increase of populist as well as
racist tendencies in Northern Europe, with a particular focus on Finland, Sweden, and Norway.

Mediterranean (European Commission, 2015). Following the European Agenda, the European Commission issued a Communication to promote a reform of the common European asylum framework, intending to develop a more fair system that will offer systematic, secure, and sustainable pathways to Europe for non-EU nationals needing protection (European Commission, 2016). In 2017, the European Parliament proposed a reform on the Dublin III regulation, which determines the European member country responsible for processing requests for international protection (European Parliament, 2020).