Working in Europe: Gender differences
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Data from recent Eurostat publications show that, despite some convergence in employment patterns between women and men, considerable gender differences remain in relation to work. Women have caught up in educational qualifications and increased their employment rate, but family responsibilities are still the main reason for women’s above average inactivity rate. Women also continue to be more concentrated in certain economic sectors. Moreover, a gender-based entrepreneurial gap remains and women remain underrepresented in labour market policy interventions.
Equality between women and men has been one of the fundamental principles of the European Union from its very beginning. Despite the fact that gender equality is embedded in the Treaty establishing the European Union, many EU policies and European law, as well as having been enforced by the European Court of Justice for several decades, gender inequalities are still widespread within EU Member States. This is the main reason why efforts to reduce gender inequalities have intensified over the past few years. Recent initiatives in this regard include the following:
- since 2004, the European Commission publishes an annual report on developments in relation to gender equality;
- in 2006, the Commission adopted the Roadmap for equality between women and men (212Kb PDF) for the period 2006–2010;
- the EU Member States approved a European pact for gender equality (253Kb PDF) at the European Council meeting on 23–24 March 2006;
- 2007 was designated as the European year of equal opportunities for all with gender being addressed as one of several underlying causes of discrimination;
- the European Institute for Gender Equality has been established by a Council regulation on 20 December 2006 and is supposed to become operational in 2008.
In the context of the European year of equal opportunities for all, Eurostat has focused in several of its publications on work-related differences between women and men in 2007. This article looks at eight Statistics in focus publications in 2007 which had a clear ‘work and gender’ focus (see references list at the end). The publication series Statistics in focus is known for its up-to-date, high-quality analysis of EU statistics, concentrating on specific topics in each issue. Overall, Eurostat data confirms work-related gender inequalities within and across EU Member States. The following sections will summarise the main findings of these reports.
Narrowing of the educational gap
Increasing labour market participation of women
Female employment and labour market policies
Differences in economic activities of men and women
Commentary
References
Annex: Data sources