Gender mainstreaming – measuring equality

The project aims to help strengthen local authorities' efforts in the area of gender mainstreaming, focusing on the general use of data and statistics.

Part 4 of the Consolidation Act on Gender Equality defines an obligation on the part of all public authorities to make equality considerations in all planning and administration – known as gender mainstreaming. However, surveys have shown that local authorities in particular make few allowances for equality issues in their planning and administration. Especially welfare and other citizen services are posing significant challenges for local authorities with regard to equality.

This mainstreaming obligation means that a review must be carried out of equality issues within an authority's area of responsibility. They key to a successful review is often that sex-disaggregated data is available and that the authority is able to process and analyse this data.

By looking at the need for sex-disaggregated statistics at local authority level and identifying which challenges municipal councils are facing in terms of data and statistics, the project seeks to highlight local authorities' general approach to data and statistics as part of their mainstreaming efforts.

The project is being conducted by the Danish Institute for Human Rights in partnership with Emeritus Professor Inge Henningsen at the University of Copenhagen and Associate Professor Karen Sjørup at Roskilde University.