Mainstreaming gender into healthcare: A scoping exercise into policy transfer in England and Germany

Abstract

Across the globe the concept of gender mainstreaming is indicative of substantive transformations, and healthcare is a particularly important policy arena. Yet existing research reveals only modest success in the implementation of gender policies in national healthcare systems, despite the availability of complex tools and guidelines. This article introduces an approach that links gender mainstreaming with approaches into policy transfer as dynamic processes of translation involving active players. In a scoping exercise the authors select England and Germany as case studies and draw on document analysis, other secondary sources and additional expert information. The analysis reveals varieties of translation of gender mainstreaming into national healthcare systems -even within the legal framework of the European Union -and the crucial relevance of feminist actors. The study raises more general questions on the nature of international policy-making in relation to national and local healthcare institutions and policy entrepreneurs.

Closing the gender leadership gap: a multi-centre cross-country comparison of women in management and leadership in academic health centres in the European Union

“…Remarkably, hospital management now seems to be more permeable for women than academic management. Although changes in gender equality are driven by many different factors [10, 17–22], our findings call for a closer look at the effects of the new modes of hospital governance and clinical management [23] on gender equality. Hospital governance has moved decision-making powers to the level of organisational units and has engaged doctors in management more closely [24].…”

“…In the United Kingdom, only two out of ten chief executives of the largest teaching hospitals are women [8]. While gender equality has moved higher up on the European Union (EU) policy agenda in recent decades [1, 9], the implementation of policies is more difficult and diverse and poorly monitored [10]. Comparative data for EU academic health centres are not available, and national data are scattered and lack standardisation.…”

Unintended Consequences of Gender Equality Promotion in Swedish Multicultural Contraceptive Counseling: A Discourse Analysis

“…Women are usually described as being particularly vulnerable due to gendered power structures (Gavriilidis et al, 2014). Regardless of whether empirical studies indicate that health outcomes are improved as a result of an increase in gender equality perspectives (Palència et al, 2014), or whether no or only ambiguous effects are seen (Kuhlmann & Annandale, 2012;Påfs et al, 2015;Payne, 2014;Sörlin, Lindholm, Ng, & Ohman, 2011), a predominant hypothesis is nevertheless that a society experiencing "true gender equality, with a simultaneous expansion of both men and women into previously gender-segregated spheres" (Backhans et al, 2007(Backhans et al, , p. 1902 will witness a gender-equal distribution in terms of health outcomes (Månsdotter & Deogan, 2016). Scholars in the field appear to agree upon the overall objective: that increased gender equality is a much desirable component of a well-functioning reproductive welfare system (Allwood, 2013).…”

Gender mainstreaming as a global policy paradigm: barriers to gender justice in health

“…As such, the concept includes the policies and activities of such agencies, the ways in which policy problems are represented at this supranational level and the ways these representations have moved and shifted, in translation across and between spheres of policy-making. Kuhlmann and Anmnandale (2012) in a paper comparing the development of gender equality health policies in Germany and the UK suggest that we need to move beyond a critique of the concept of gender mainstreaming to an analysis of how policies are exchanged between international, regional and national policy contexts. Drawing on ideas of policy translation, rather than policy transfer, highlights the dynamic nature of policy-making and the roles of various actors within the process.…”