Discrimination: An act of making differences between people based on different factors such as gender, race, age, origin, colour, sexual orientation etc. Discrimination leads to unequal or prejudicial treatment of human beings.
Gender equality: A state of equal access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender. The gender equality index represents a composite indicator that is based on the EU policy framework and helps to measure and monitor progress of equality across the European Union. The current gender equality index for the EU amounts to 67.4 out of 100 (EIGE, 2019). The best results are seen in the domains of health (88.1 points) and money (80.4. points). On the contrary, the worst results are in the domain of power (51.9 points).
Gender pay gap: A difference between the average hourly earnings of men and women. According to data from the European Commission (2017), women earn more than 16% less than men in the European Union. The highest gender pay gaps are in Germany (20.8%), the Czech Republic (21.1%) and Estonia (25.6%). The lowest gender pay gaps are in Romania (3.5%), Luxembourg (5.0%), and Italy (5.0%).
Inclusive value chain: Creating beneficial conditions for small businesses to help them to bring a product or service from its design and manufacturing to customers. Possible ways to build more inclusive value chains are: to prioritise and promote small entrepreneurs and local economies, provide training on gender equality awareness at local or municipal level, educate consumers etc.
Unpaid work: Any work that produces goods or services but which is not directly remunerated. Unpaid work is represented for example by care work or housework. Unpaid work is not equally distributed among women and men. According to European Commission’s data (2018) women take more time off from work to care for children or other family members (e.g., women spend 36 hours per week caring for adults, children and doing housework. Whereas men spend on average 21 hours per week doing unpaid work).
Vulnerable employment: A type of work that tends to be insecure and vulnerable to fluctuations in the economy. This refers to unpaid family workers and own-account workers.
Women’s economic empowerment (WEE): A process that supports women to gain power to make decisions, to get access to resources they need and to economically benefit from them.
Wellbeing: A state of experiencing health, happiness and prosperity. According to Carol Ryff the main factors which are most important for well-being are: self-acceptance, personal growth, purpose in life, environmental mastery, autonomy and positive relations with others. Feeling economically empowered contributes to reinforcement of those factors.
