EQUALIT-Á:
Gender Equity in Rural Areas

In the project EQUALIT-Á: Empowering Communities for Gender Equity & Enhanced Quality of Governance in Italy and Austria, we are working with the Municipality of Irschen to improve gender equity in rural areas. The project is funded by Interreg and is a cross-border initiative between the regions of Upper Carinthia (Austria) and South Tyrol (Italy).

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The project's objectives are:

• Developing cross-border governance structures to promote gender equity through the joint planning of measures and tools, with a particular focus on rural and mountainous regions.

• Integrating a gender perspective into existing strategies and policy instruments.

• Establishing a network of institutions and organizations that develop projects, exchange knowledge, and advance gender equality.

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The project’s key components include the development of a status quo analysis examining the current state of gender equity in Austria and Carinthia. The analysis revealed significant inequalities between women and men. Some of the key findings include:

• In Carinthia, women's annual gross income amounts to only 63% of men's, representing a gap of almost €15,000 per year.

• In 2025, only 10 out of 132 municipalities in Carinthia had a female mayor (7.6%).

• Women perform 60% of all household and caregiving work.

• Lack of time is the main barrier preventing women from participating fully in economic and political life and has been shown to negatively affect their health.

• Many women reported experiencing a significant "double burden"—chronic overload resulting from the combination of paid employment and unpaid care work.

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Based on the baseline analysis, a series of participatory strategy development workshops were held with representatives from civil society, economy, politics, and public administration. Together, we developed measures built around four strategic pillars:

• Promoting participation and leadership

• Strengthening women's economic empowerment

• Expanding social services and infrastructure

• Integrating diverse gender perspectives across all policy areas (cross-cutting pillar)

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Would you like to launch a similar project? Contact us using the subject line "Gender Equality": here.
 

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Partner municipality: Irschen
Further project information: here.