Lifting the Ban on Women's Night Work in Europe - A Straight Road to Equality in Employment?

The article, which constitutes a summary of the author's PhD thesis, discusses the history and present state of the traditional ban on women's night work in industries in Europe. While that ban constitutes the start of health and safety legislation in Europe, it also was contradictory, to say that least, in that it targeted women's employment in traditionally male occupations, while being littered with exceptions for women's night work in traditionally female occupations in nursing as well as the gastronomy. Since night work constitutes a health hazard for all workers, there is no objective reason to restrict it to women. The clash of the ban with sex equality law has prompted the EU commission as well as national legislators to abolish it. The article doubts however whether deregulation such as this constitutes a straight road to equality. While there is no biological reason to consider working at night more detrimental to women than to men (except during pregnancy), the fact that women traditionally serve their family by preparing breakfast means that they will get less sleep than men after a night shift, leading to considerably higher health risks for those women who comply with the traditional gender roles. These health risks are amplified for mothers who may choose night work in order to overcome the lack of public childcare so typical for Germany. Accordingly, the author argues for a general duty to reduce night work, and to award shorter shifts and higher payments for those workers who must work at night, replacing deregulation by stricter regulatory regime in favour of all workers.