MOBILE Associate Professor Urška Šadl awarded funding for eFree project
Associate Professor at MOBILE, Urška Šadl, has been awarded DKK 6,334,368 from the Independent Research Fund Denmark for the project Equally Free: Gender (Gaps) in EU Free Movement Law (eFree).
While EU citizenship formally provides an equal right to live, work, study and retire in any member state, free mobility reinforces existing gender disparities in employment, pay and caregiving. The eFree project examines the ways in which the application of universal rights can produce inequalities through a case-based analysis of disputes relating to free movement. By going beyond abstract sets of rules to engage real-world legal conflicts relating to EU free movement, the research seeks to provide a fresh perspective on how nominally equal rights can produce unequal outcomes.
In responding to questions around how the legal system protects men and women differently and how equal rights can lead to unequal conditions, the research seeks to contribute across three key areas:
- Centring gender in the examination of free movement and citizenship rights, as well as in the context of the internal market and anti-discrimination.
- Challenging assumptions around EU legislation as responding to the needs of citizens by highlighting the institutional logics, bureaucratic incentives and lobbying that shape policy and regulation.
- Combining critical legal analysis with a systematic examination of gender patterns and attitudes to expose inequalities and gather robust empirical evidence.
Learn more about the eFree project here.