these surveys generated a new set of evidence on policy and institutional instruments for achieving gender balance in the public sector integrating gender considerations into the policy and servicedelivery processes and implementing a gender equality agenda chapter provides the rationale for the study its objectives and the methodological approach to data collection chapter reviews the trends and approaches to enable equal access to decisionmaking posts in the public domain across oecd countries for both men and women including parliaments the political executive the judiciary and the senior civil service chapter accounts for trends in public sector employment of women and highlights policy measures used in oecd countries to enable parity in the public sector