Women’s skills for Europe’s future: How the ETF seeks to reform inclusive and competitive skills systems across regions

Pilvi Torsti, Director of the ETF and Cristina Prandi, Rector of the University of Turin, recently co‑authored an International Women’s Day editorial. Their core message: investing in women’s skills is a strategic economic and political choice.

10 Mar 2026

At the University of Turin, women make up 62% of the student body. They graduate at higher rates than their male peers. Then, within a single year of finishing their degrees, the pay gap is already visible. This situation is not exclusive to Italy. Across Europe and the neighbouring regions where the ETF works, the same pattern repeats.

Gender inequality in skills systems is an active drag on economic performance, and closing it requires deliberate policy intervention and structural reform of the systems through which skills are built and recognised. Investing in women’s skills can determine economic competitiveness, social cohesion and the quality of democracy, but when half of the population cannot fully participate in the labour market or is channelled away from emerging sectors, countries limit their capacity to innovate and grow.

This argument arrives with perfect timing, with the first anniversary of the Union of Skills, the Commission’s flagship initiative to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness through coordinated action on skills development across Member States and neighbouring regions.

Additionally, On 5 March 2026, the European Commission launched its Gender Equality Strategy 2026-2030. Hadja Lahbib, Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management was direct when presenting the strategy alongside Executive Vice-President Roxana Mînzatu,

"Gender equality is the engine of strong democracies. This strategy is a legacy moment for Europe, and it must be a legacy of action."

The evidence base is well-established. The World Bank estimates that fully valuing women's human capital could increase global wealth by 20%. Companies with gender-balanced leadership outperform average profitability by 25%. In the sectors driving the next phase of economic transformation (digital, green, advanced manufacturing), women remain significantly underrepresented:

fewer than three in ten vocational ICT students are girls;

women hold one in four jobs in science and engineering;

72% of green transition positions are occupied by men.

These imbalances represent a systemic failure to develop and deploy available talent at a moment when labour markets cannot afford it. By limiting a country’s readiness to benefit from technological transformation and energy transition, there are consequential restrictions towards two priorities that shape the future of work.

Equitable access to skills development, especially in STEM, digitalisation and sustainability, is therefore central to building societies that are resilient and competitive.

Neighbouring regions face some of the deepest disparities

The EU’s neighbouring countries experience some of the highest gender gaps in labour‑market participation:

14% in Algeria

15% in Jordan

63% in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan

EU average: 71%

The reasons are multiple: social norms, limited access to training, a high burden of unpaid care (globally carried 75% by women), and structural barriers that restrict women’s entry into quality employment. Still, the policy implication is consistent: generic skills investment that does not account for gendered barriers will not reach women, regardless of its stated intent.

Where policy needs to act

Three pressure points determine whether skills systems work for women or against them.

Qualification design. Frameworks that recognise only formally acquired credentials systematically disadvantage women, who disproportionately build skills through non-formal and informal routes - career interruptions, caregiving periods, community roles. Expanding recognition of prior learning is not a marginal technical adjustment; it is a precondition for inclusion.

Vocational and technical pathways. The underrepresentation of girls in ICT and STEM vocational programmes does not begin at enrolment. It is shaped by guidance systems, cultural expectations, and the absence of visible role models years earlier. Curriculum reform and teacher training must address the pipeline before it reaches the training provider.

Labour market transition. The University of Turin’s data point that women represent 62% of its student population, yet the gender pay gap is measurable within one year of graduation, demonstrates that the problem is not educational attainment, the issue arises at the point of entry into employment. Active labour market policies, transparent pay frameworks, and employer-level accountability mechanisms are necessary complements to skills investment.

Women’s skills are Europe’s future, and the ETF helps build inclusive skills ecosystems

The ETF works with ministries, social partners and training institutions across 27 partner countries, its mandate aligning directly with the challenges highlighted in gender equality and skills development. We support the design of qualification frameworks, the accreditation of training providers, and the reform of vocational systems, with an explicit focus on equity and access.

This is also a dimension of European soft power. Investment in inclusive skills systems in neighbouring regions builds stability, creates the conditions for economic partnership, and demonstrates that the EU's commitment to gender equality extends beyond its own borders. The Union of Skills initiative, launched by the European Commission, provides the policy architecture. The ETF provides the operational capacity to make it real in countries where the gaps are deepest.

A proposal for Turin

The University of Turin and the ETF share a city and, increasingly, a common agenda. The University has achieved doctoral-level gender parity, grown female academic staff to 45%, and is actively working through the STEM imbalances that persist at undergraduate level. The ETF brings a comparative perspective from across Europe's neighbourhood and a mandate to translate that evidence into policy reform.

Together, they have the conditions to establish Turin as a European centre for skills policy research and practice, testing inclusive approaches, generating transferable evidence, and feeding it directly into both EU and partner country policy processes.

It is time to show our commitment to gender equality

At the current pace of change, it would take 50 years for the EU to reach full gender equality, European Commission according to the European Institute for Gender Equality. That it is a challenge to the adequacy of current policy ambition. The barriers are known. The interventions that work are documented. The new Gender Equality Strategy provides the framework. What remains is the institutional will to prioritise structural reform in qualification design, in vocational pathways, in labour market policy, and in the regional partnerships through which the EU exercises its influence.

The cost of inaction is measurable. The tools for action exist. We now must prove our commitment.