EU opens accession negotiations with Ukraine on June 25th. It is an important stage of becoming a European Union member state. There is no doubt that citizens of Ukraine desire EU accession, but do Ukrainian women and men understand the values behind the European integration, especially, the gender equality?
Sociological research, made by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology at the request of Ukrainian Women’s Fund showed that the answer is yes.
91% of Ukrainians consider that equal opportunities for women and men are an integral part of standards of human rights in the European Union. Indeed, the difference in men’s and women’s answers is so small that does not exceed statistical error.
In the opinion of Ukrainian women and men, European integration will expand opportunities for women to defend their rights, moreover, to be more active in different life spheres — in the labor market, in social life, in spheres of education and training, and will allow women to participate actively in decision-making processes and generally in economic activity. Differences in men’s and women’s answers appeared to be insignificant – women slightly prioritized participation in social life (92,3% among women against 88% among men) and participation in decision making (90,9% against 86,6%), respectively.
Accession to the European Union is a long-term process that includes adaptation of the legal system, the legislation itself and the economy. More than 10 years ago during the Revolution of Dignity Ukrainians proved that they share European values and are ready to work on the European Union accession. And the provision of gender equality is one of the values that is becoming more and more visible at all decision-making levels.
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Questions “Do you agree or not with the following statement: “Equal opportunities for women and men – are an integral part of the European Union standards of human rights”?” and “Do you agree or not that European integration will expand opportunities for women in the following spheres (choose all of the statements that you consider are fair)” were included in nationwide poll “Thoughts and views of the Ukrainian population” (Omnibus) of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology at the request of Ukrainian Women’s Fund in framework of the project “Network of gender think tanks: capacity development for advanced policy design, impact assessment, strategic advocacy, and specialized policy communications” that is implemented with support of the European Union.
The field stage of the research lasted from 29th of November to 10th of December in 2023. In general, the research covered 2009 interviews.
Statistical sampling error (with the probability 0.95 and design-effect 1.1) does not exceed: 2.4% for indicators, closed to 50%, 2.1% for indicators, closed to 25 or 75%, 1.5% for indicators, closed to 10 or 90%, 1.1% for indicators, closed 5 or 95% and 0.5% for indicators, closed to 1 or 99%.