Social and Gender Policy under the RRF

Abstract

The EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) represents an unprecedented fiscal and governance instrument, explicitly linking economic recovery to social investment and gender equality objectives. This panel examines how social and gender policy priorities have been articulated, integrated, and implemented within national Recovery and Resilience Plans, and assesses the broader implications for social Europe. Bringing together comparative and country-specific analyses, the panel explores whether and how the RRF has contributed to strengthening social protection, care policies, labour market inclusion, and gender equality, as well as the extent to which these goals have been mainstreamed across policy areas. Contributions address both policy design and implementation, focusing on institutional actors, governance arrangements, conditionality, and political contestation at EU and national levels. Particular attention is paid to variations across member states, the role of gender mainstreaming and social indicators, and the tensions between growth-oriented reforms and social objectives. By critically assessing the social and gendered outcomes of the RRF, the panel contributes to ongoing debates on crisis governance, EU social policy integration, and the transformative potential of post-pandemic recovery instruments.

Title	Details
Explaining divergent social RRF spending in Southern Europe: A comparative study of Greece and Italy	View Paper Details
Strong Institutions, weak Outcomes? Gender Mainstreaming in the National Recovery and Resilience Plans of Austria and Belgium	View Paper Details
The Politics of Care: Feminist Governance in the Italian Post-Pandemic Recovery	View Paper Details
Leveraging Crowdcoding and LLMs for the analysis of gender mainstreaming: gender- sensitive recovery policies in the EU	View Paper Details