Time for Equality

A newly published statistical report summarises the findings of a research project on gender equality in the workforce.

The study Gender equality in the workforce: Reconciling work, private and family life in Europe, commissioned by the European Commission Directorate General for Justice and Fundamental Rights,  examines the work, family and private life conflicts at different stages in one’s life course (from school-to-work transition to parenthood). It investigates the extent to which men and women face these challenges differently and examined their labour force participation, working hours, and contributions to household income and to domestic work.

This report is a compilation of the core findings from a series of six Short Statistical Reports (SSRs) about reconciliation of work, private and family lifet. The individual SSRs examined:

•  the progress towards attaining the Barcelona childcare targets (SSR1)
•  the labour force participation rates of parents: men and women at work(SSR2)
•  balancing work and family for single parents (SSR3)
•  gender inequalities in the transition from school to work (SSR4)
•  share of earnings and domestic work within couples (SSR5)
•  family-friendly working schedules (SSR6).

Each of these SSRs provided a statistical portrait of key trends, challenges and the effect of various policy levers using the latest nationally-comparable data from Eurostat.

The report concludes that there have been improvements in gender equality, but women continue to lag behind on labour force participation and earnings, face slower transition to their first job, while contributing more to domestic tasks even if they are breadwinners. Such inequalities are particularly pronounced among mothers, who have lower employment rates, shorter hours and interrupted their careers more due to childcare, compared to women without children and men (with or without children).

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