Why do we need a G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council (GEAC)?

Professor Jutta Allmendinger: Gender equality is not just a national issue. It affects all major global issues and trends and therefore needs to be addressed internationally. As a central multilateral body, the G7 is exactly the right place for this.

What are your priorities for the GEAC this year?

Allmendinger: We will be working on seven thematic priorities in the GEAC: Funding, Investments and Ownership, Caring Economy, Feminist Diplomacy, Gender-based Violence, Crisis and The Role of Gender and Gendered Impacts, and Intersectional Consciousness.

Why exactly these priorities?

Allmendinger: The GEACs hosted by the Canadian, French and British G7 Presidencies have taken a comprehensive stock of gender equality internationally. We are building on that. It is important to us to devote our work to those problems that, on the one hand, could not be dealt with in depth by previous GEACs and, on the other, have since become particularly urgent once again. In addition, we will present and promote on the international stage the G7 Dashboard on the implementation of gender equality measures that was recommended by the GEAC under the British Presidency, and has now been developed.

The German sociologist Professor Jutta Allmendinger is President of the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB), Professor of Sociology of Education and Labour Market Research at the Humboldt University in Berlin, and Honorary Professor of Sociology at the Freie Universität Berlin. Her research interests include aspects of the labour market, social policy, and social inequality. She also focuses on the sociology of the life course. Her work focuses on issues of gender equity, both in the labor market and within the family.

Allmendinger is a member of the ZEIT editorial board and author of numerous books, including „Es geht nur gemeinsam! How We can Finally Achieve Gender Justice“ (2021). She has received several awards for her work, including the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2021, as part of the UK's G7 Presidency, she was appointed as a German member of the G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council (GEAC), which she chairs this year at the invitation of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The body will continue to develop recommendations for strengthening gender equality in 2022.

Further information can be found here: Gender Equality Advisory Council (GEAC)