The COFACE network welcomes a new member, Associação Bravery Devotion. Based in Portugal and founded in 2022, Bravery Devotion is a non-profit association dedicated to empowering women entrepreneurs, particularly those running microbusinesses, often while juggling caregiving responsibilities.
At the end of May, Väestöliitto, one of COFACE Families Europe’s member organisations, hosted an event titled “LGBTIQ+ Rights Under Threat: Countering the Antigender Movement.”
International Women’s Rights Day 2025 takes place at a pivotal moment for the European Union. The EU’s current Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025 is concluding this year and following this, a new strategy is to be launched in 2026. This transition offers an opportunity to set new priorities and intensify efforts towards inclusion, equity, and support for women. COFACE will continue to push for an ambitious new strategy with flagship initiatives focusing on closing the gender care gap, and in general on addressing the intersections of gender equality and family well-being.
The latest Family Barometer by COFACE member Gezinsbond focuses on care leave and the results reveal that families in Flanders with children between 0 and 18 years are seeking more time to care for their children. The findings particularly highlight that over two-thirds of parents want longer maternity leave.
Equal at Home – Equal at Work How to effectively support mothers and fathers in balancing family and work life? 21st May 2025 - Warsaw, Poland Balancing work and family responsibilities is a growing challenge across Europe. According to a 2018 Eurobarometer survey,...
In December 2024, the EPSCO Council adopted conclusions on “strengthening women’s and girls’ mental health by promoting gender equality.” They contain a strong family dimension.
In a world where technology is an inexorable part of our lives, accessing and making use of it on equal terms has become a vital necessity and a right that makes the difference between full participation and discrimination, between socialisation and isolation, between inclusion and social exclusion.
COFACE and NAMS Lithunia organised a European expert meeting in Vilnius in September 2024 to explore the intersection of two domains (mental health and work-life balance), bringing together stakeholders from academia, industry, government, and civil society.
An estimated 708 million women worldwide are outside the labour force because of unpaid care responsibilities, according to new ILO global estimates, released end of October 2024, on the occasion of the International Day of Care and Support.
In Sweden, new parental leave has been extended to grandparents and friends. New rules now allow parents to transfer up to 45 days of their paid leave to someone who isn’t the child’s legal guardian – such as a relative or a friend – as long as the person is insured for parental allowance.
COFACE Spanish member, UNAF (Unión de Asociaciones Familiares) has launched the campaign ‘Mute your machismo’, which aims to raise awareness among teenagers about sexism in video games and to prevent discrimination and violence against female gamers with macho comments and behaviour.
Dutch COFACE member Pro Parents are stressing the importance of strong safety standards and adequate conditions for women working during pregnancy. 50% of pregnant women in the Netherlands work in unsafe conditions. This shocking statistic was recently uncovered from research by Dr. Monique van Beukering. Dr van Beukering is a company doctor, scientific researcher and domain expert at Pro Parents Workplace Wellbeing.
Several UN entities, civil society organisations, governments, and future generations joined forces at the 68th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68) to emphasise the importance of gender equality and the rights of women and girls everywhere. To share good examples and best practices to address challenges for women of today, the Union of Hungarian Women Association (COFACE member) hosted an official Parallel Event
In 2019, COFACE Families Europe mobilised voters locally through its member organisations (representing families of all types, without discrimination). These recommendations are addressed at EU-level policymakers in the European Commission, European Parliament and Council of the EU, from whom we expect joint leadership to ensure tangible results for Europe’s citizens. It is on this basis that we have assessed the European Union’s work from 2019 to 2024, and how it contributes to achieving eight positive outcomes for families of today.
COFACE Spanish member, Unión de Asociaciones Familiares (UNAF) has initiated the campaign “Choose Your Role, Act or Not?” aimed at raising awareness among families about the significance of guiding children in the use of video games to prevent the adoption of sexist stereotypes and behaviors.
The Foundation for Single Parent Families “Isadora Duncan” based in Leon (Spain) and member of COFACE, has been working for many years against gender violence and launched a campaign to make economic violence visible and to work on its prevention. The campaign includes the design and elaboration of different materials and resources as tools for information, prevention and awareness-raising.
Care is a fundamental aspect of our lives, as everyone will either require or provide care at some point. Gender inequalities in informal care and its implications for carers and the labour market is of major concern in the EU. The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on the significance of formal care services, unveiling the vulnerabilities of care systems. Failure to address the existing deficiencies in care provision and access to formal care services could result in a future care crisis and exacerbate gender inequalities.
Finland is known around the world as a champion of sexual and reproductive health and rights. As the anti-sexual rights movement gains momentum around the world, COFACE Member Vaestoliitto (the Family Federation of Finland) calls on the Finnish government to strengthen its role and put sexual rights at the forefront of its development policy.
Unpaid care duties are key to gender gaps in the labour market. As illustrated in a report published by the European Commission, across the Member States, care responsibilities are equally shared between women and men only in about one-third of families. The interplay between labour market and household conditions may create vicious cycles.
While single motherhood does not automatically mean vulnerability, statistics, and testimonies show that this status puts women at increased risk of poverty and social exclusion. On this International women’s rights day, COFACE Families Europe is calling on the EU and Member States to act now for the economic and social rights of single mothers.
COFACE and its members in Europe work to address the needs of all families and boost gender equality. In February 2023, our president Annemie Drieskens delivered a speech at the European Parliament during the “Empowering Women Now” event organised by Renew Europe.
The strict public health restrictions implemented by governments in 2020 to control the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly changed working life and continued to shape it over the two years that followed. This report by the European Working Conditions Telephone Survey (EWCTS) provides a detailed picture of the working lives and conditions of Europeans in that exceptional time.
In September, COFACE Families Europe, represented by its President Annemie Drieksens, had the privilege to participate in a conference on inclusive families policies organised by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Istanbul, Turkey.
The EU Work-life Balance Directive is the first legislative initiative that follows the launch of the European Pillar of Social Rights in 2017 and was formally adopted two years later in 2019. COFACE Families Europe expects high ambitions from the different EU institutions and national governments in the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights, as a stepping stone to develop a framework for a more social and fairer European Union.
This new report presents the findings of COFACE Families Europe’s transposition assessment carried out together with national experts from 10 Member States representing a geographical and welfare mix: Belgium, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Poland and Spain.
Media statement. Brussels, 8th September 2022. COFACE Families Europe welcomes yesterday’s adoption by the European Commission of the European Care Strategy. With this decision, set in the framework of the Action Plan on the European Pillar of Social...
In June 2022, COFACE and Pro Parents Netherlands organised an Expert meeting on gender equality, sustainability and workplace well-being.
COFACE’s Polish member Share The Care has recently published a publication entitled “100% Man. How to Father Like a Pro” through which they want to show a completely new and different dimension of fatherhood.
In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, women spend 3 hours more per day on unpaid care work than men. It’s high time that men step up at home, here are 5 ways they can do so.
To mark this International Day of Families 2022, we are pleased to announce the launch of #FamilyTeamWork, a joint campaign of COFACE Families Europe and Men Engage Eastern Europe & Central Asia, a UNFPA-led platform. No matter the make-up of a family, a family is a team.
To mark International Day of Families 2022, COFACE Families Europe launches #FamilyTeamWork, a joint campaign with Men Engage Eastern Europe & Central Asia, a UNFPA-led platform.
We are happy to share with you a guide for working parents and employers “Equal at Home – Equal at Work” published by our member Share the Care Poland. It is a collection of expert articles and good practices for employers on building parental equality in the workplace.
Gender inequalities are at the heart of the care economy, directly linked to women’s position on the frontline of unpaid and low-paid work in the globalised care economy. The European Commission published a study exploring the EU care economy, the gendered nature of care work and its continued reliance on unpaid or low-paid work of women.
On the occasion of the International Day for Women’s Rights, COFACE Families Europe calls on all EU stakeholders to reflect on the future of care they want for society and for themselves.
We are pleased to announce that our member organization, KMOP, has been accepted as a full partner of the EQUALS Global Partnership for Gender Equality in the Digital Age.
Gender equality cannot only be an exclusive women’s affair, and thus needs to include the other half of the equation, men.
New social rights, consolidation of existing social rights, and some missed opportunities COFACE assessment of the EU work-life balance directive The agreement on the EU Work-Life Balance Directive on 24th January 2019, its adoption by the European Parliament...
Girls outperform boys in school but they are under-represented where big decisions are taken. Women earn 16% less than men on average in the EU and when they get older, their pension is 39% lower than men’s. We all keep repeating this every year but the situation does...
