This thesis evaluates the evolution of the European Union's high-level employment policy using gender equality as a critical lens. The research reveals the contestation around gender equity means that are otherwise invisible in this policy. The findings point to an increasingly ambiguous approach by EU policy actors towards gender equality in EU employment policy. The multiple le perspectives on gender in EU employment policy were explored through analysing the paradigms within which the policy is structured, namely: work life reconciliation, flexible labour markets and education and training. Each policy paradigm is distinct; however they share similar features such as a common language and a set of normative assumptions across a specific policy area. The policy paradigms are studied over a ten year period which coincided with two high level framings of EU employment policy, the Lisbon Strategy in 2000 and the Growth and Jobs Agenda 2005. The thesis argues that gender equality offers a useful lens with which to critically evaluate EU employment policy as it ' cross-cuts' debates during policy-making (Vedoo and Lombardo 2007). Through the analysis of a considerable body of pol icy documents and interviews with leading figures in EU policy-making, multiple visions of gender equality are exposed each fining Rees's (1998) criteria of 'tinkering', ' tailoring' and ' transforming'. The significance of each of these interpretations is attributed to the access and influence of gender-sensitive policy-making actors during the evolution of in the high-level EU employment policy .

European labour markets are increasingly divided between insiders in full-time permanent employment and outsiders in precarious work or unemployment. Using quantitative as well as qualitative methods, this thesis investigates the determinants and consequences of labour market policies that target these outsiders in three separate papers. The first paper looks at Active Labour Market Policies (ALMPs) that target the unemployed. It shows that left and right-wing parties choose different types of ALMPs depending on the policy and the welfare regime in which the party is located. These findings reconcile the conflicting theoretical expectations from the Power Resource approach and the insider-outsider theory. The second paper considers the regulation and protection of the temporary work sector. It solves the puzzle of temporary re-regulation in France, which contrasts with most other European countries that have deregulated temporary work. Permanent workers are adversely affected by the expansion of temporary work in France because of general skills and low wage coordination. The interests of temporary and permanent workers for re-regulation therefore overlap in France and left governments have an incentive to re-regulate the sector. The third paper then investigates what determines inequality between median and bottom income workers. It shows that non-inclusive economic coordination increases inequality in the absence of compensating institutions such as minimum wage regulation. The deregulation of temporary work as well as spending on employment incentives and rehabilitation also has adverse effects on inequality. Thus, policies that target outsiders have important economic effects on the rest of the workforce. Three broader contributions can be identified. First, welfare state policies may not always be in the interests of labour, so left parties may not always promote them. Second, the interests of insiders and outsiders are not necessarily at odds. Third, economic coordination may not be conducive to egalitarianism where it is not inclusive.