Although the European Employment Strategy recognizes that gender equality and gender mainstreaming are essential for progress, the analysis of the National Reform Programs 2005 and 2006 indicated that the visibility of gender and the attention paid both to gender equality policies and gender mainstreaming in the national reports has declined. This decline appears to be strongly linked to the disappearance of the specific gender guidelines following on from the earlier removal of the equal opportunities pillar from the European Employment Strategy guidelines. A reversal of this development can only be attained if all stakeholders have a better knowledge of concrete examples of gender mainstreaming and share the commitment to integrate gender issues in the European Employment Strategy in the future. This report, therefore, provides a checklist for effective gender mainstreaming and analyzes the most relevant employment policy domains from a gender perspective. As such the report contains information for the 27 Member States in addition to three EEA-EFTA countries: Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.--Publisher's description.