Public sector equality duties developed as positive obligations from affirmative actions. These are actions, which give specific preferences to discriminated groups to improve situations, in which a real discrimination can be verified; these are situations where groups are disadvantaged or underrepresented due to previous or continuing discrimination. Equality duties therefore go beyond prohibitions of discrimination, such as in § 7 AGG (General Equal Treatment Act), since discrimination is meant to be counteracted preventatively and not reactively. They also go beyond affirmative action, such as in § 5 AGG, as they oblige public authorities to give preference to those potentially affected by discrimination in order to produce equal opportunities.

In order to make the design of public sector equality duties more understandable this chapter describes their history followed by a short introduction to the concept.