What kind of gender regimes are emerging in the new CEE member states? We have argued that we need to understand the gender impact of welfare states in terms of gender differences in work, care, time, income and voice. But we also need to understand them in terms of different levels of intervention, and the extent to which social policies support gender equality at the social/collective level, in civil society and in households or whether social policies expect individuals to make gender equality for themselves.

The movement from collective solutions to more individual ones is an intrinsic part of the movement from communism. But does it also bring new gender differences in welfare? We have examined this in terms of key components of gender regimes, work, care, income, time and voice through a range of indicators such as gender gaps in pay, employment and unemployment, working time, part-time work, welfare systems’ impact on poverty and the gender differences in exposure to poverty. In particular, we have looked at the extent of gender difference/gender equality on these measures, and how the new CEE member states compare with the EU15, and states representing particular positions on the dual earner/breadwinner spectrum, with Sweden at one end and Ireland and Malta at the other. In CEE countries, women's labour market participation has diminished, but so has men’s; concomitantly, women's unemployment has increased, but so has men’s. But in every country except the Czech Republic the gaps between women's and men's employment and unemployment rates are below the EU15 average and everywhere they are well below representative countries with a male breadwinner tradition. Women’s working hours in the new CEE member states are also more similar to men's than in the EU15. In particular, there is a relative absence of part-time work, and it is less characteristically women's work than in the EU15 where women's part-time work contributes five times as much to total employment as men’s. All of these statistical comparisons show less gender-differentiated work and working time.

The evidence of welfare transfers suggests that they are as successful in reducing women's risk of poverty as in reducing men’s. In Estonia the gender gap in risk of poverty after transfers is 3% and compares with Ireland, but in all other CEE countries the gender gap after transfers is below the EU15 average, and in one case – Poland – is negative.