Study examines women's employment in Basque Country

Source: Basque CES.

Aspects of women's employment

In its report, the Basque CES highlights some points that affect the situation of female employment in the Basque Country:

• demographic changes, new family structures and birth rate trends. There has been an increase in life expectancy and a decrease in the fertility rate (down from 2.67 children per thousand women in 1975 to 0.97 per thousand in 1995, compared with an average of 1.5 per thousand in the EU);

• levels of education and career orientations. The presence of women at the various levels of education has become equal to that of men (it is even higher at higher levels), except in vocational training (where women make up 41.88% of students, falling to 17% excluding textiles, hairdressing, administration, health and services to the community, and areas with a higher unemployment rate). In general, the courses chosen by women are not in the fields with the greatest employment opportunities (such as technical studies) and involve occupations traditionally filled by women; and

• whereas a lower level of education does not affect the career expectations of men (men with secondary education have a lower rate of unemployment), it does affect that of women, in addition to the important factor of age. Among people with a secondary education ,women have twice the unemployment rate of men, whereas among those with a higher education the gender difference in the 16-44 age group is no more than six percentage points, and in the 45 and over age group the rate is the same.

According to the study, women entry to the labour market has been accompanied by an alteration in family behaviour - in terms of delaying childbirth, having fewer children etc - and the conditions on the labour market are difficult for them. Thus, although women represent just over half the Basque population, they form 40% of the active population, 36% of employed people and 60% of the unemployed.

The Basque CES cites figures from the 2000 Survey of the Population in Relation to Activity (Encuesta de Población en la Relación con la Actividad) which indicate that 58% of female wage-earners had an open-ended or stable contract (compared with 72% of men), 31.5% had a temporary contract or a training contract (compared with 26.8% of men), and 10.5% had no contract (compared with 1.2% of men). The employment conditions of women were thus far more precarious than those of men. Furthermore, the wages received by women for the same levels of qualification are still lower than those of men - see table 3 below. In 2000, the average monthly wage of women was 47.6% lower than that of men, which may be a reason why women give up work when they have children.