Large difference in employment rates between men and women!
If you compare the employment rates in EU regions, you will notice that the female employment rates still lag behind the male rates in most of the regions.
The EU has set a policy target in this area of halving the gender employment gap from 11.7% in 2019 to 5.8% by 2030.
The green regions shown here are those that have already attained the target.
Source: Eurostat
In the dark green areas are there more women employed than men?
Yes.
I question the assumption behind this map, which is the idea that men and women must have work at the same rate and anything else is an aberration that needs to be addressed. The issue is more subtle than that.
I’ll speak from the perspective of a father who quit his job to raise his small children, knowing that it is complete career suicide (I worked in tech).
In my view a problem occurs when somebody wants to work and is unable to, as well as when somebody wants to quit working and is also unable to do so. And while there are some general trends where for example women often quit (paid) work for a few years to raise their families, that is only a problem when they would rather not, but this simplistic map (and narrative) doesn’t shed any light on that.
Likewise, how many fathers out there would love to raise their small kids but don’t because they know they will be destroying their careers to a degree that their female peers will not? This map does capture this issue, but the simplistic narrative that women sacrifice their careers to raise their children does not, when in practice the damage to their career is much less than a man doing the same thing.
Want a useful map? Poll people to find out why they are working instead of quitting, rather than having preconceived simplistic assumptions about what “is right”.
Even if I just accept your claim about men taking a worse career hit for leaving the workforce to raise their children…
Why are men taking a worse hit? Sounds like some kind of social injustice.
“You woman will take less of a career hit than I, so you should be the one to stay home and I’ll continue my career”
Jup, it’s pretty bad for all who do not conform to the social expectation.
When a woman has a five year employment gap she is normal. If a man has a five year employment gap it’s suspicious. Saying “I raised my kids” should ideally be enough to justify it, but nevertheless that’s five years of experience other men have.
(This is incidentally also the largest factor of the gender payment gap. Both sexes are paid almost the same until children get into the picture. Most likely the woman will stay home and lose years of experience that their partner will get.)
Interesting that in Germany the East-West divide is very much visible, with the progressive womens role in the former GDR still resulting in good employment rates for women today, whereas countries like Poland with a strong ressurgence of catholicism fare much worse.
Franconia, my favorite 15th district of the GDR /s
the female employment rates still lag behind the male rates
I hope this is not seen as “women do not work as much as men” or it ignores unpaid care work:
Countries that do not have enough childcare facilities, such as kindergartens and schools that do not end in the middle of the day, rely on women not working full time. The same goes for care for the elderly and disabled, and then there is unpaid community work. On top of cultures that still think men should not do any care work or household chores.Green countries do a lot to enable women to go to work full time, but still rely way too much on women accepting more of unpaid care work on top, than men. COVID was overcome a lot by putting even more unpaid work on women’s shoulders, when childcare facilities and schools closed, it also showed how many families were relying on grandparents to take care of the children when these had to be protected and could not do this care work anymore.
Germany ist still divided, because in the East the women were very much needed as workers, so the DDR provided close by, free childcare facilities for every child, school was the whole day and they gave women one day of the month free from work because they realized they did more care work than the men and needed time for that too (it was a dictatorship and childcare was also used to indoctrinate the children, not painting the DDR in good light here, just looking to explain the divide), women also had good chances on the career ladder …
In the West in the long years of the CDU being in the government, there was still the idea of you being a bad mother if you do not stay at home, childcare wasn’t made available as much as needed and school ended mid day for most schools, not to mention not enough done to give woman equality in the work environment, but given a lot of incentive for women to be stay at home mums. Now the same party wants more women to work full time because our industry suffers and of course there is no word about their part in it being the way it is.But why is women’s employment the variable here? Why are women supposed to take the role of unpaid care workers.
They aren’t “supposed” to do it, but currently are doing it and I do not see it changing. I am 57 years old and it has barely changed over the last 50 years. So I want to make sure that the situation as it is is seen when looking at this map. I am all for equal care work for all genders, I always was, but most of the time it is only about “how do we get more women in full time jobs” and not equally about “how do we get men to do equal amounts of care work”.
Is this EVERYONE who is unemployed, or everyone who is seeking employment but is currently unemployed?
According to the subtitle, this map shows total employment rates irrespective of any other factors.
So, a very misleading map. Why calculate “gender employment gap” based on “how many people are working” without factoring in anything else?
How is it misleading? If 90% of working age men are working and only 80% of women, that is a considerable gap and should be adressed. Now comes the step of analyzing the reasons and targeting those specifically.
But already assuming reasons to take out of calculation assumes them to be “good” reasons by default and removes them from being adressed.
How is it something that needs “adressing”? When people want to work, but can’t, and there is a significant difference between men and women, then that probably needs to be looked at.
Simply seeing “in turkey, a country known for following more traditional ways of life, more men are working than women” is not very relevant.Because work means income and income means having some control over your life, whereas not working for women often means dependency to stay with their husbands even if they dont want to or are subject to abuse.
Interesting, that Tyrol is the best state in Austria, even tho it’s the most catholic and conservative one
That green state is Salzburg, not Tyrol
A bit of number play:
Assuming men work continuously between the ages 20 and 64, and all women do so as well, except for a short time where they do not work at all, then 5% of unemployment means 26.4 months of not working. That’s just over two years of difference in working time in this age range. A reasonable time to stay at home due to pregnancy and baby care in my opinion.
Why are you assuming it should only be women who take time off work due to child care? Sensible countries have equal parental leaves for both parents.
I don’t. But I think pregnant women should not be expected to work.
You’re still employed for those times though you are just on leave from work.
Depends on how it is counted, but yes, good point.
WTF is going on in Spain?
Don’t know tell me.
