This thesis evaluates the evolution of the European Union's high-level employment policy using gender equality as a critical lens. The research reveals the contestation around gender equity means that are otherwise invisible in this policy. The findings point to an increasingly ambiguous approach by EU policy actors towards gender equality in EU employment policy. The multiple le perspectives on gender in EU employment policy were explored through analysing the paradigms within which the policy is structured, namely: work life reconciliation, flexible labour markets and education and training. Each policy paradigm is distinct; however they share similar features such as a common language and a set of normative assumptions across a specific policy area. The policy paradigms are studied over a ten year period which coincided with two high level framings of EU employment policy, the Lisbon Strategy in 2000 and the Growth and Jobs Agenda 2005. The thesis argues that gender equality offers a useful lens with which to critically evaluate EU employment policy as it ' cross-cuts' debates during policy-making (Vedoo and Lombardo 2007). Through the analysis of a considerable body of pol icy documents and interviews with leading figures in EU policy-making, multiple visions of gender equality are exposed each fining Rees's (1998) criteria of 'tinkering', ' tailoring' and ' transforming'. The significance of each of these interpretations is attributed to the access and influence of gender-sensitive policy-making actors during the evolution of in the high-level EU employment policy .