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Employment rate among women the lowest in Europe
Romania has one of the lowest employment rates of EU states, both in the case of women (45.4%) and men (62.7%), but for women, the employment rate is one of the lowest in Europe and the gender difference is one of the highest -17%- according to a Social Monitor Infograph that quotes Eurostat data of 2022.
According tto the source, that thing shows that at the level of active population in Romania, fewer women than men are officially working.
For comparison, the highest employment rate among women is in the Netherlands (68.1%), next to Estonia (67%), Sweden (65.9%) and Denmark (65%). According to Eurostat data, similar tendencies are found among men , the highest values being recorded in Western and Northern European countries.
Data obtained from polls made by the European Institute for Gender Equality (2022) on gender equality in unpaid labour explores the distribution of time spent daily on unpaid household activities.
When it comes to obtaining the main income and career advancing, men get a passive role in the household. That can be seen in EIGE data, where women in Romania have the highest time spent with unpaid household work, that is cooking,cleaning, laundering and tasks about household maintenance and planning, the source shows.
In 2022, according to EIGE, 87% of women in Romania declared they were involved in household chores daily, while Germany was at the opposite pole with 49% and Luxembourg with 54%. The big difference between men and women about their participation in daily household chores places Romnaia high above the average of EU states, next to countries from Central and Eastern Europe, Bulgaria and Hungary, where differences between men and women is over 25%.
According to the source, data strengthen the idea of the traditional gender division placing women in the position of main family caretakers and men in the position of income winner.
“What does the employment rate say when we analyse it next to gender differences in the salary field? According to Eurostat data of 2022, Romania ranks first among EU states, with one of the lowest gender difference in salary payment – 4.5%, next to Italy (4.3%) and Belgium (5%), but at great difference versus western countries where there is a high difference rate in the wages of men and women. Fr instance, we can refer to Germany which has a difference of 17.7% in salaries of men and women. Compared to Romania, which has a low employment rate, Germany has a high employment rate for men – 71.7% and women – 63.4%, the report mentions.
The negative rate of gender differences in salaries means that on the average, women have incomes similar to those of men. “Data should be cautiously considered when women's employment rate is lower than that of men, as in Romania. Labour content and women's activity sector are often different from those of men. For instance, the hierarchy of positions in organizations influences salary levels. In the case of men, in highly qualified activity sectors, such as IT or engineering, men have better paid jobs as there are more men in leading positions than women,”the latest infgraph issued by Monitorul Social shows.
At the opposite pole, women hold positions which generally get lower pay, in activity sectors like cleaning, hotels and restaurants, retail trade or food services. Last but not least, many women choose jobs with flexible work contracts, part time or work from home because of the responsibilities they have at home.
The employment rate of men and women, the time allocated to domestic unpaid work and salary differences were indicators analysed in the latest inforgraph released by Monitorul Social, a project of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation which offers an overall image of gender inequalities in the labour market in Romania compared to other European states.