#InternationalWomensDay: Part-time employment of women in EU increases drastically with number of children

In 2014, the gender pay gap stood at 16.1% in the European Union. In other words, women earned on average 84 cents for every euro a man makes per hour.

Across all member states, the gender pay gap in 2014 ranged from less than 5% in Slovenia and Malta to more than 20% in Estonia, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and Slovakia. It should be noted that part of the difference in average gross hourly earnings can be explained by individual characteristics (e.g. experience and education) and by sectoral and occupational gender segregations (e.g., there are more men than women in certain occupations with, on the average, higher earnings compared to other occupations).

Differences between women and men in the labour market do not only concern wage discrepancies, but also and along with it, the type of contract held. In 2014, while 1 in 5 women in the EU (20.0%) aged 25-49 and without children were working part-time, this concerned 1 in 12 men (8.2%). And the gap widens with the number of children: almost half of women (45.1%) with at least three children were working part-time, compared with 7.0% for men in the same situation.

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, celebrated each year on 8 March, Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, publishes a selection of data on men and women with regard to their situation on the labour market. This News Release only shows a small part of the large amount of gender based data available at Eurostat. A dedicated section as well as some infographics on the topic of gender equality are available on the Eurostat website.

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