Text tabled : A7-0264/2010

  Maria do Céu Patrão Neves (PPE), in writing. – (PT) Precarious jobs are an important factor in social instability that is deteriorating significantly at present, with high unemployment rates that are still rising in several countries, including mine, Portugal.

Traditionally, all forms of insecurity or volubility in employment hit female manual workers first and hardest, with lower wages, even for equal work, with higher unemployment rates and with greater job insecurity due to longstanding social factors, but also specifically because of motherhood.

The negative impact of this situation is not confined to the already severe discrimination to which women have always been subjected: rather, by hindering women’s equal access to the world of work, it affects their economic independence and their autonomy as individuals.

In this context, combating job insecurity, particularly for women, represents a very constructive contribution to social stability and gender equality, one of the fundamental values espoused by the European Union.