Archive:Gender statistics at regional level

Data extracted in March and April 2015.

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Maps can be explored interactively using Eurostat’s Statistical Atlas (see user manual).

This article is part of a set of statistical articles based on the Eurostat regional yearbook publication. It presents statistical information analysing regional developments for a range of gender-based indicators, looking at a number of key areas that define the lives of women and men across the European Union (EU).

Figure 1: Regional disparities in the gender gap for life expectancy at birth, by NUTS level 2 region, 2012 (¹)
(years)
Source: Eurostat (demo_r_mlife) and (demo_mlexpec)

Main statistical findings

Map 1: Gender gap for life expectancy at birth, by NUTS level 2 region, 2012 (¹)
(years, female life expectancy - male life expectancy)
Source: Eurostat (demo_r_mlife) and (demo_mlexpec)

Figure 2: Regional disparities in the gender gap of deaths from diseases of the circulatory system, by NUTS level 2 region, 2011 (¹)
(crude death rate per 100 000 inhabitants)
Source: Eurostat (hlth_cd_acdr2)

Figure 3: Regional disparities in the gender gap of deaths from cancer (malignant neoplasms), by NUTS level 2 region, 2011 (¹)
(crude death rate per 100 000 inhabitants)
Source: Eurostat (hlth_cd_acdr2)

Figure 4: Regional disparities in the gender gap for early leavers from education and training, by NUTS level 2 region, 2014 (¹)
(% share of 18–24 year-olds)
Source: Eurostat (edat_lfse_16)

Figure 5: Regional disparities in the gender gap for persons aged 30–34 with tertiary education
(ISCED levels 5–8) attainment, by NUTS level 2 region, 2014 (¹)
(% share of 30–34 year-olds)
Source: Eurostat (edat_lfse_12)

Map 2: Gender gap for core human resources in science and technology (HRSTC), by NUTS level 1 region, 2013
(percentage points difference between the share of the economically active population for women and the share of the economically active population for men)
Source: Eurostat (hrst_st_rsex) and (hrst_st_ncat)

Map 3: Gender gap for the activity rate, persons aged 15–64, by NUTS level 2 region, 2014 (¹)
(percentage points difference between the activity rate for men and the activity rate for women)
Source: Eurostat (lfst_r_lfp2actrt)

Figure 6: Regional disparities in the gender gap for the employment rate, persons aged 20–64, by NUTS level 2 region, 2014 (¹)
(%)
Source: Eurostat (lfst_r_lfe2emprt)

Map 4: Gender gap for the employment rate of persons aged 25–34, by NUTS level 2 region, 2014 (¹)
(percentage points difference between the employment rate for men and the employment rate for women)
Source: Eurostat (lfst_r_lfe2emprt)

Map 5: Gender pay gap, by NUTS level 1 region, 2010 (¹)
(%, average gross hourly earnings of male paid employees - average gross hourly earnings of female paid employees, as a percentage of average gross hourly earnings of male paid employees)
Source: Eurostat (earn_ses10_rhr) and (earn_gr_gpgr2)

Map 6: Gender gap for part-time employment, by NUTS level 2 region, 2014 (¹)
(percentage points difference between the share of women aged 15–64 working part-time and the share of men aged 15–64 working part-time)
Source: Eurostat (lfst_r_lfe2eftpt) and (lfst_r_lfsd2pop)

Map 7: Gender gap for average hours worked in main job, by NUTS level 2 region, 2014 (¹)
(hours per week, difference between the average hours worked by men and the average hours worked by women)
Source: Eurostat (Labour Force Survey)

Today policymakers are increasingly aware of the importance of integrating and mainstreaming gender issues and many organisations work to promote equal opportunities for women and men, at a regional, national and international level. This article provides an insight into regional differences between the sexes: the information presented focuses on gender inequalities that often impact on the everyday lives of Europeans, through an analysis of health and education issues, as well as a description of the developments within the European labour market.

Life and health

There are considerable differences between women and men in terms of their health status, behaviours and the speed and ways that they choose to access health systems. Indeed, gender plays a specific role in both the incidence and prevalence of specific pathologies, while health outcomes may be affected by a range of socioeconomic factors, such as different working environments and lifestyles which influence the exposure of women and men to different diseases.

Life expectancy at birth

On average, a girl born in the EU-28 in 2012 could expect to live 83.1 years, while the corresponding life expectancy at birth for a newly-born boy was 5.6 years lower, at 77.5 years. The gender gap in life expectancy has slowly narrowed in recent decades (while overall life expectancy has continued to rise for both women and men).

Female life expectancy was higher than male life expectancy in every region of the EU

Women live, on average, longer than men across all of the EU Member States and a more detailed analysis of the gender gap for NUTS level 2 regions shows that their life expectancy at birth was higher than that for men in every region of the EU (see Map 1). However, although women may expect to live longer than men, they tend to spend a lower proportion of their lives free from disability (as measured in terms of healthy life years).

The darkest shade in Map 1 shows the biggest gender gaps in life expectancy, where women could expect to live at least 7.5 years more than men. These regions were generally located in the Baltic Member States and eastern EU Member States (where there was a cluster of regions covering the whole of Poland, a single region in Slovakia, four regions in Hungary, and two regions in eastern Romania). The gap in life expectancy between the sexes was also at least 7.5 years in three northern French regions along the Channel (Bretagne, Basse-Normandie and Nord - Pas-de-Calais) and in the French overseas region of Guadeloupe.

The gender gap in life expectancy was particularly pronounced in the Baltic Member States

Figure 1 provides an alternative means of analysing this data on life expectancy at birth. The three Baltic Member States were the only NUTS level 2 regions to report that female life expectancy was at least 10 years higher than for men, peaking at a difference of 11.2 years in Lithuania. By contrast, the gender gap in life expectancy was relatively narrow in the north-western corner of the EU, across many regions of Sweden, Denmark, southern Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Ireland; as well as in Iceland and Norway. Of the 13 regions in the EU where the gap for life expectancy was less than 3.5 years in 2012 (as shown by the lightest shade in Map 1), there were only two from outside of the United Kingdom: the southerly Swedish region of Småland med öarna and the Dutch region of Flevoland. The lowest gap in the EU was recorded in North Eastern Scotland, where women could expect to live 3.0 years longer than men.

There was no systematic pattern as regards life expectancy and whether or not this tended to be higher or lower than average in capital regions. There was generally little difference between the sexes, in other words, if the capital region had higher life expectancy then this pattern held for both men and women (or vice-versa when lower than average). The most notable difference was in Italy, where male life expectancy for those living in the capital region was 0.5 years lower than the national average, while women living in the capital region could expect to live 0.6 years longer than the national average.

Mortality patterns and underlying causes of death

Some health problems are specific to one or other of the sexes: for example, women face health issues linked to childbirth / reproductive health or breast cancer (although the latter also affects a small proportion of men). Men are more prone to die from diseases related to smoking, alcohol or drug abuse, while they also have gender-specific causes of death, such as prostate cancer. Female deaths from breast cancer and male deaths from prostate cancer are analysed in more detail in this article.

Diseases of the circulatory system

Diseases of the circulatory system are the most common cause of death in the EU-28. Crude death rates (which do not take account of the increased longevity of women) for diseases of the circulatory system accounted for 400.4 deaths per 100 000 female inhabitants in the EU-28 in 2012, compared with a rate of 348.2 deaths per 100 000 male inhabitants. A more detailed analysis, by age, reveals that women were particularly susceptible to die from diseases of the circulatory system from the age of 65 onwards.

Figure 2 presents the regional disparities in crude death rates from diseases of the circulatory system by NUTS level 2 region for 2011. Perhaps the most striking aspect is not the difference in crude death rates between the sexes, but rather the variation in death rates between EU Member States. Indeed, crude death rates for diseases of the circulatory system were higher for women and men across all six Bulgarian regions than they were in any other region of the EU, apart from the death rates recorded for women in the Romanian regions of Sud-Vest Oltenia and Sud - Muntenia.

In Malta, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Bulgaria, the crude death rate for diseases of the circulatory system was higher among men than it was among women

There were four EU Member States where the crude death rate for diseases of the circulatory system was higher among men than it was among women in 2011: Malta, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Bulgaria. At the other end of the range, the gap between women and men rose to more than 100 deaths per 100 000 female / male inhabitants in Austria, Germany, Estonia, Slovenia and Croatia.

In 2011, the highest crude death rates for diseases of the circulatory system among both women and men were recorded in the Bulgarian region of Severozapaden (1 354 deaths per 100 000 female inhabitants and 1 335 deaths per 100 000 male inhabitants). By contrast, some of the lowest crude death rates were recorded in the French overseas regions and the Spanish islands of the Canarias. Aside from these outermost regions of the EU, the lowest crude death rates for women were recorded in the relatively young populations that were resident in the capital regions of Inner London, the Île de France, Southern and Eastern (Ireland) and the Comunidad de Madrid, as well as in Flevoland (the Netherlands), Outer London and Rhône-Alpes (France) — each of these regions recorded a crude death rate for diseases of the circulatory system that was less than 200 deaths per 100 000 female inhabitants. For men, low crude rates were also recorded in the above-mentioned regions, while rates of less than 200 deaths per 100 000 male inhabitants were also recorded in the Belgian capital of Région de Bruxelles-Capitale / Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest, Utrecht (in the Netherlands), Alsace (in France), as well as the Illes Balears, Región de Murcia and Ciudad Autónoma de Melilla (all in Spain).

The crude death rate for women for diseases of the circulatory system was higher than that for men in over four fifths of the regions in the EU

Of the 272 NUTS level 2 regions for which data are available, more than four fifths (83.5 %) recorded a higher crude death rate for women than for men for diseases of the circulatory system. The biggest gender gaps were recorded in the east German regions of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz, where female death rates were 170–222 deaths per 100 000 inhabitants higher than for men. By contrast, crude deaths rates for diseases of the circulatory system were 27–34 deaths per 100 000 inhabitants higher for men than for women in Övre Norrland (Sweden), South Yorkshire (the United Kingdom), Martinique (France) and Yugoiztochen (Bulgaria), rising to a difference of 44 additional deaths per 100 000 male inhabitants in Lincolnshire (also the United Kingdom).

Cancer (malignant neoplasms)

An analysis of crude death rates for cancer shows that across the EU-28 there were 294 deaths per 100 000 male inhabitants in 2012, while there were 219 deaths per 100 000 female inhabitants.

Figure 3 presents information at a regional level for 2011: in the Nordic Member States, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, as well as Norway and Switzerland, crude death rates from cancer for men were only slightly higher than those for women. By contrast, a much wider gender gap was apparent in several eastern EU Member States (in particular those which had some of the highest death rates — for example, Hungary and Croatia), as well as in Greece, Portugal and Lithuania (a single region at this level of analysis).

Crude death rates from cancer were systematically higher among men than women in every region of the EU

There were four regions in the EU where crude death rates from cancer among men were higher than 400 deaths per 100 000 male inhabitants in 2011. These were two Hungarian regions (Közép-Dunántúl and Észak-Magyarország), the Italian region of Liguria and the Spanish region of the Principado de Asturias (where the highest male death rate was recorded, at 442 deaths per 100 000 male inhabitants).

There were five regions in the EU where crude death rates from cancer among women were higher than 300 deaths per 100 000 female inhabitants in 2011. They were: Cumbria and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (two sparsely populated regions from the north-west of the United Kingdom); Dél-Dunántúl (in the south-west of Hungary); and Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Liguria (two northerly, coastal regions in Italy). The highest death rate for cancer among women was recorded in Liguria (319 deaths per 100 000 female inhabitants).

Crude death rates from cancer were systematically higher among men than women across every NUTS level 2 region of the EU in 2011. There was, however, almost no difference in death rates in the Belgian capital (a gap of 2.7 deaths per 100 000 inhabitants) and this pattern was repeated in the capitals of Finland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Austria, the Czech Republic and Denmark, where the gap between the sexes never rose above 25 deaths per 100 000 inhabitants; several other regions from these Member States also recorded relatively small differences.

At the other end of the range, crude death rates for men were almost 200 deaths per 100 000 inhabitants higher than those for women in the north-western Spanish region of the Principado de Asturias, while a difference of 150–170 deaths per 100 000 inhabitants was recorded in Alentejo (Portugal), the neighbouring region of Extremadura (in Spain), as well as three Greek regions (Ipeiros; Anatoliki Makedonia, Thraki; Thessalia).

Education

Policymakers recognise the importance of education and the contribution that it may provide to socioeconomic development and sustainable growth. Indeed, education and training may be used to promote and ensure equal opportunities in life. Education affects women’s and men’s life chances, insofar as it provides the qualifications and skills that are necessary to enter the world of work, thereby affecting potential earnings and career development.

There are considerable and established differences between women and men in terms of the subjects that they tend to follow in tertiary education. Education statistics show that women account for a relatively low share of students following courses in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. By contrast, there are higher numbers of women students in the fields of languages, the arts, social sciences, education, welfare and health. Additionally, even if women outnumber men among university graduates, in general they are under-represented among researchers and academic staff.

Even if nowadays young women are more highly educated than men, their qualifications do not appear to be a dominant factor in their employment outcomes, as a smaller proportion of women are employed and those who are employed tend to be paid less than their male counterparts (see below under the heading of ‘Gender pay gap’).

The Europe 2020 strategy has two headline targets in relation to education:

to reduce the proportion of early leavers from education and training to below 10 %; and,
to raise tertiary educational attainment among those aged 30–34 to at least 40 %.

More information on the Europe 2020 targets for education is provided in this article.

Early leavers from education and training

Information relating to the proportion of early leavers from education and training may be analysed by sex. The share of women aged 18–24 in the EU-28 with at most a lower secondary level of education and who were not in further education or training fell in 2014 to 9.5 % and as such already reached the Europe 2020 target. The female rate for early leavers in the EU-28 was 3.2 percentage points lower than the corresponding rate for men in 2014. The gap therefore closed somewhat in recent years, as in 2008 — at the onset of the financial and economic crisis — it had been 4.0 percentage points lower for women (than for men).

In Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Spain, Estonia and Cyprus, the proportion of male early leavers was at least 5 percentage points higher than the female share

Bulgaria was the only EU Member State in 2014 where the male rate for early leavers was lower than the corresponding rate for women (a marginal difference of just 0.1 percentage points). Male early leaver rates were no more than a single percentage point higher than female rates in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Croatia. By contrast, the biggest gender gaps for early leavers from education and training were recorded in Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Spain, Estonia and Cyprus, where the proportion of male early leavers was at least 5 percentage points higher than the corresponding share for women (Figure 4).

The rate of early leavers from education and training was lower for women than for men in 174 out of the 209 regions for which data were available for 2014. There were seven regions where this gap between the sexes rose to more than 10 percentage points, all of which were in the south, namely: the Greek region of Notio Aigaio (which had the biggest gap at 19.8 percentage points); La Rioja, Extremadura, the Comunidad Valenciana and the Illes Balears (all from Spain); and the Italian regions of Calabria and Sardegna.

In those regions where male early leaver rates were lower than those for women, the differences were usually quite small (generally less than 2 percentage points). Larger differences — in favour of men — were recorded in the Spanish autonomous city of Melilla, Severozapaden and Severen tsentralen (two northern regions of Bulgaria), Strední Cechy from the Czech Republic, Východné Slovensko from Slovakia, as well as two regions from the north-east of England (Tees Valley and Durham; Northumberland and Tyne and Wear). The biggest gap was recorded in Northumberland and Tyne and Wear, where male early leavers rate was 6.1 percentage points lower than that for women.

Tertiary educational attainment among those aged 30–34

As noted above, the second education target under the Europe 2020 strategy is to raise tertiary educational attainment among those aged 30–34 to at least 40 %. This target had already been reached for women when analysing the latest data available by sex, as the proportion of women aged 30–34 with a tertiary level of education rose to 42.3 % in 2014. By contrast, approximately one third (33.6 %) of men aged 30–34 in the EU-28 had attained this level of education. The gender gap of 8.7 percentage points between female and male rates in 2014 was wider than it had been in 2008 (6.4 percentage points), as a result of the female attainment rate rising at a faster pace than the male rate, with a gain of 7.9 percentage points between 2008 and 2014 compared with a 5.6 points increase for men.

Contrary to the general pattern observed across the EU, there were several German regions where male tertiary educational attainment was higher than female attainment

Some 16 % of the 256 NUTS level 2 regions for which data for 2014 are available reported that a higher proportion of men aged 30–34 had attained a tertiary level of education. These 41 regions were distributed across a relatively small number of EU Member States and were mainly located in Germany, where at a national level the share of men aged 30–34 who had attained a tertiary level of education was 1.2 percentage points higher than the corresponding proportion for women. Male tertiary educational attainment was higher than female attainment in just over 70 % of the German regions. The United Kingdom (five regions including the capital of Inner London), Austria (three regions), the Netherlands and Romania (two regions each), and a single region from each of France and Spain were the only other Member States to report that at least one of their regions had a higher proportion of men than women aged 30–34 with a tertiary level of education (Figure 5).

The vast majority of the regions in the EU had a higher share of women than men aged 30–34 with a tertiary level of education. Some of the biggest gender gaps were recorded in the Baltic Member States, Slovenia, Poland, Portugal, Bulgaria and Sweden, where the proportion of women with a tertiary level of education was at least 15 percentage points higher than the share among men. Some of these regions with particularly large gender gaps in favour of highly qualified women could be characterised as relatively rural or sparsely-populated, where the gap often reflected lower attainment among men, rather than higher attainment among women, perhaps reflecting a higher tendency for men with a tertiary level of education to have left these regions. Examples of such relatively rural or sparsely-populated regions include the Province Namur in Belgium, the Auvergne in France, Umbria in Italy, Mellersta Norrland in Sweden or Cumbria in the United Kingdom. The largest gap between the sexes was recorded in the Danish region of Sjælland, where the share of women aged 30–34 who had completed tertiary studies was 28.5 percentage points higher than for men. The proportion of men aged 30–34 in Sjælland with a tertiary education was 20.9 %, compared with 54.9 % in the neighbouring capital region of Hovedstaden, while there was a far smaller difference in tertiary educational attainment levels among Danish women between Sjælland (49.4 %) and Hovedstaden (62.4 %).

Human resources in science and technology

Investment in research, development, education and skills constitutes one of the EU’s main policy areas and is considered an essential element for promoting smart, sustainable and inclusive economic growth through the development of a knowledge-based economy. Indicators on the core measure of human resources in science and technology (HRST) provide details concerning the proportion of the economically active population who have completed a tertiary level of education and are employed in a science and technology occupation.

Map 2 shows the gender gap in relation to core HRST: across the EU-28, the proportion of the economically active population with a tertiary level of education working in a science and technology occupation was 5.1 percentage points higher among women than men in 2013. This gender gap was evident across almost the whole of Europe, with only two groups of exceptions: half of the regions in Germany (principally those in the west and the south) and Switzerland (only national data are available).

There were 15 NUTS level 1 regions in the EU where the female share of HRST in the economically active population was at least 10 percentage points higher than that for men, peaking at 17.6 points difference in Lithuania, while the other two Baltic Member States recorded the second and third highest differences. The remaining regions with relatively high gender gaps in favour of women were located in Poland (all six regions), Sweden (all three regions), Slovenia (a single region at this level of analysis), as well as the Région Wallonne (in Belgium) and Yugozapadna i Yuzhna Tsentralna Bulgaria; there was also a single region in Turkey, Bati Anadolu, where the difference between the sexes was 10 percentage points in favour of women.

Working life

While there have been considerable changes in the workplace, women remain underrepresented in some sections of society (for example, in the academic world, in boardrooms, or in politics). Women are also less likely to participate in the labour market, and those who do are more likely to work on a part-time basis, have a temporary contract, work for a lower number of average hours per week, and receive a smaller salary.

One of the root causes of such differences lies outside of the workplace (and its potential for discrimination). Indeed, most women spend a considerable amount of their time taking care of children or relatives and carrying out (unpaid) household chores. If female labour force participation is to rise higher, then it is likely that further efforts will need to be made to promote a better work–life balance for women, for example, through increased provision of childcare, changes to tax systems, or the redistribution of family tasks and responsibilities.

Activity rates

The activity rate measures the share of those in work and actively seeking work (the employed and the unemployed) in the population of a particular age: for the analysis presented here the age range 15–64 is used. There were 242.6 million persons active in the EU-28 in 2014: the male activity rate stood at 78.1 %, while that for women was 66.5 %.

The EU’s gender gap for activity rates continues to close as more women enter the labour market

Historically, there has been little change in the male activity rate, while there has been a considerable increase in the participation of women in the labour force. Even in the relatively short period from the onset of the financial and economic crisis to the latest period for which information are available there was a marked contrast in developments between the sexes. The male activity rate for the EU-28 rose by 0.3 percentage points between 2008 and 2014, while over the same period there was an increase of 2.8 points for the female rate.

The activity rate for women aged 15–64 in southern Italy and the Sud-Est region of Romania was less than 50 %

Less than half of all women aged 15–64 in southern Italy and the Sud-Est region of Romania were in work or available for work in 2014, this share falling to less than 40 % in the four Italian regions of Sicilia, Campania, Calabria and Puglia; this was also the case in about half of the regions in Turkey. By contrast, the activity rates of women and men were almost equal in the Nordic Member States of Finland and Sweden (as shown by the lightest shade in Map 3). Female activity rates rose above 75 % in several regions across (eastern) Germany, the Nordic Member States, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

In 2014, the gap between male and female activity rates was greater than 20 percentage points in 14 regions of the EU, which were principally located in south-eastern corner of the EU: three regions from Greece, seven from southern Italy (including the four mentioned above), Malta (a single region at this level of analysis), two regions from Romania, and the Spanish autonomous city of Ceuta. The biggest gap between the sexes was recorded in the Italian region of Puglia, where the male activity rate was 28.9 percentage points higher than that for women.

Employment rates

The employment rate is the share of employed persons in relation to the total population. Gender differences in employment rates may occur for a number of reasons, although family responsibilities are the most likely cause of higher inactivity among women.

SPOTLIGHT ON THE REGIONS

Kýpros, Cyprus

Employment rates for women aged 25–34 years are generally lower than those for men; this may at least in part be related to some women taking a career break in order to start a family. This gender gap was, however, reversed in six NUTS level 2 regions in 2014. Two of the six regions where female employment rates were higher were from the Netherlands (Friesland and Groningen), two were from Spain (the Principado de Asturias and the Illes Balears), while the other two were also island regions, the Região Autónoma da Madeira (Portugal) and Cyprus (a single region at this level of analysis).

©: Kirill__M / Shutterstock.com

Comparisons of employment rates can be made for different age groups: for example, within the Europe 2020 strategy the focus is on those within the range 20–64 years-old. The Europe 2020 strategy does not make a distinction between the sexes with respect to its target of a 75 % employment rate. In 2014, the male employment rate for the EU-28 was identical to the Europe 2020 target (75.0 %), while the female rate was 11.5 percentage points lower, at 63.5 %. Although this gap is quite large, the financial and economic crisis affected traditionally male-dominated sectors (for example, construction) more than those where a higher proportion of women work and as a result the gender gap in employment rates narrowed somewhat.

Figure 6 shows a relatively strong link between female employment rates and overall employment rates, insofar as those regions with some of the lowest female employment rates were generally the same regions that had some of the lowest overall employment rates; furthermore, most of these regions were also characterised as having a relatively large gender gap between employment rates for men and women.

Male employment rates were higher than female rates in every region of the EU

In every NUTS level 2 region of the EU-28, male employment rates for those aged 20–64 exceeded the female employment rate. In 2014, female employment rates were relatively close to male rates in most of the Nordic and Baltic Member States, as well as in several regions of Bulgaria, Germany, France and Portugal. At the other end of the range, the largest differences between male and female employment rates were recorded in the Mediterranean region, in particular, Greece, southern Italy, and Malta. The biggest difference between the sexes was recorded in Malta, where the male employment rate (for those aged 20–64) was 28.4 percentage points higher than that for women in 2014.

Map 4 also presents data for the employment rate, but provides instead an analysis of gender differences for those aged 25–34, in other words, some of the prime child-bearing years for women; note also that it is relatively common in some of the EU Member States for students to still be at university at the start of this age range.

EU-28 employment rates among those aged 25–34 were, on average, higher than for the whole of the working-age population. This was the case for both women and men, with both sexes recording an employment rate in 2014 among those aged 25–34 that was 5.1 percentage points higher than for those aged 20–64.

There was a considerable gap in employment rates between the sexes for those aged 25–34 in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia

In the vast majority of regions, the employment rate for men aged 25–34 was higher than the rate recorded for women (of the same age). This gender gap remained relatively low in several regions of Belgium, eastern Germany, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Sweden (as shown by the lightest blue shade in Map 4). By contrast, the biggest gaps were recorded in the Czech Republic, rising to upwards of 30 percentage points difference in the regions of Severozápad and Střední Morava. All eight of the regions in the Czech Republic recorded a gap of at least 20 percentage points between the employment rates of men and women aged 25–34. This was also the case in all but one (Dél-Dunántúl) of the NUTS level 2 regions in Hungary, and in three of the four regions from Slovakia (the exception being the capital region of Bratislavský kraj). There were 10 other regions in the EU where the gap between the sexes in the employment rate for those aged 25–34 was at least 20 percentage points: Dytiki Makedonia in Greece, Picardie and the Auvergne in France, Sicilia in Italy, Opoloskie in Poland, the Sud-Est region of Romania and four regions within the United Kingdom, namely: Cheshire; Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire; Shropshire and Staffordshire; and Outer London. The gender gap for those aged 25–34 was also particularly evident in Turkey, as the employment rate for men was more than 30 points higher than that for women in each of the 26 regions shown.

In 2014, there were six regions in the EU where the female employment rate for those aged 25–34 was above the corresponding male rate (as shown by the light red shade in Map 4). Two of these were neighbouring regions in the Netherlands (Friesland and Groningen), two were Spanish regions (the Principado de Asturias and the Illes Balears), while the other two were also islands, the Região Autónoma da Madeira (Portugal) and Cyprus (a single region at this level of analysis). The widest gender gap among these six regions was recorded in Madeira, where the female employment rate was 5.8 percentage points higher than that for men of the same age. There was also one region in Norway where the female employment rate for those aged 25–34 was higher than the corresponding rate for men: there was a difference of 1.2 percentage points between female and male rates in in Hedmark og Oppland.

Gender pay gap

One of the most highly publicised differences between the sexes is in relation to pay. The principle of equal pay is part of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Article 157), which states that each EU Member State ‘shall ensure that the principle of equal pay for male and female workers for equal work or work of equal value is applied’.

Even in those EU Member States where the rights for paternal leave and childcare provisions are highly developed, women may face discrimination from employers who are reluctant to assign them to high level positions, or prefer not to hire women (perhaps fearing they could remain absent from work after childbirth). While the gender pay gap may reflect different forms of discrimination, it is also the result of a number of other factors that extend beyond the question of equal pay for equal work, for example:

educational differences with respect to the subjects studied by women and men;
segregation in the labour market as regards the different sectors and occupations traditionally occupied by women and men;
unequal sharing of childcare and household responsibilities between women and men;
difficulties in reconciling work with private life.

The EU-28's gender pay gap remained relatively unchanged at just over 16 %

The gender pay gap is calculated as the difference between average earnings of men and women as a percentage of average earnings of men. Across the whole of the EU-28 economy, women were paid, on average, 16.1 % less than men in 2010 (the latest date for which regional data are currently available). Fresher information shows that the gender pay gap in the EU-28 was relatively stable between 2010 and 2013, with a gap of 16.4 % in 2013.

SPOTLIGHT ON THE REGIONS

Slovenija, Slovenia

Across the whole of the EU-28 there was a relatively wide gender gap for pay. In 2010, the gender pay gap (defined here in relation to average hourly earnings of a male employee) in the EU-28 was 16.9 %. There were three regions — Region Wschodni in Poland and the Italian regions of Isole and Sud — where women were paid, on average, more than their male counterparts, while there was almost no difference in the level of pay between the sexes in Slovenia (a single region at NUTS level 1).

©: Matic Stojs / Shutterstock.com

The largest pay differentials between the sexes (as shown by the darkest blue shades in Map 5) were found in a cluster of NUTS level 1 regions covering western and southern Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria and western Hungary, as well as in Estonia, Finland and the southern half of England; all of these regions recorded a gender pay gap of at least 20 % in 2010. By contrast, the average difference between men’s and women’s hourly gross earnings was less than 5 % in two Polish regions, two eastern regions of Germany, in Macroregiunea Trei (Romania) and Slovenia (a single region at this level of analysis).

There were three regions in the EU where women earned more than men in 2010: two of these regions were in Italy, Isole and Sul, while the third was from Poland, the Region Wschodni. Female earnings were 6.8 % higher than those for men in Isole, 9.7 % higher in Sul, and 10.8 % higher in the Region Wschodni.

Part-time employment

In 2014, there were almost three times as many women as men working on a part-time basis in the EU-28. The 32.8 million women working part-time in the EU-28 accounted for almost one third (32.9 %) of the total female workforce, while about 10 % of the male workforce was working on a part-time basis.

Map 6 shows the gender gap between the share of women and men working part-time in relation to the total working-age population (defined here as those aged 15–64 years). In the EU-28, one fifth (20.0 %) of the female population was employed on a part-time basis, while the corresponding share for men was 7.1 %; as such, the gender gap between the sexes was 12.8 percentage points.

The incidence of female part-time work was particularly low in Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia, Hungary and Latvia

Those EU Member States that were characterised by relatively large gender gaps tended to have high rates of part-time work, especially for women. While the incidence of female part-time work was as low as 3.1 % in Bulgaria, and remained below 10 % of the female workforce in Slovakia, Croatia, Hungary and Latvia, some 40–50 % of working women in Belgium, the United Kingdom, Austria and Germany worked on a part-time basis, a share that rose to 76.8 % in the Netherlands. As such, some of the EU Member States with the highest female employment rates in 2014 also displayed a high proportion of these women working part-time; this was particularly the case in the Netherlands, and to a lesser degree in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

In 2014, the Netherlands also recorded the highest share of part-time employment for men, as more than a quarter (28.2 %) of the male workforce in Netherlands was employed on a part-time basis. In the Nordic Member States, Germany, Austria, Cyprus, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Ireland more than 10 % of the male workforce was employed on a part-time basis.

The biggest gaps between the sexes in relation to part-time employment tended to be recorded in those EU Member States where the incidence of female part-time work was particularly high

Some of the biggest gender gaps between the sexes and some of the highest incidences of female part-time employment were recorded in the Netherlands, as well as some regions in the Nordic Member States, Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom. There were eight regions in the Netherlands and six regions in Germany where the share of the female working-age population working on a part-time basis was at least 30 percentage points higher than the corresponding share for men (as shown by the darkest red shade in Map 6). Across the whole of the EU, the biggest gap between the sexes was recorded in the Dutch region of Zeeland, where the share of the female working-age population employed on a part-time basis was 38.5 percentage points higher than for men.

By contrast, there was little difference between the sexes in relation to the incidence of part-time work in those regions / EU Member States characterised by a low propensity to employ on a part-time basis. There were five regions in Romania, four in Portugal and three in Greece where a slightly higher share of the male (compared with female) working-age population was employed on a part-time basis; this pattern was repeated in several Turkish regions too. However, the differences between the sexes in these regions were generally very small, with the share among men no more than 2.5 percentage points higher than that for women in the Sud-Est region of Romania.

Average working time

On average, people in the EU-28 worked 37.2 hours per week in 2014. A closer analysis by sex reveals that women worked an average of 33.6 hours, compared with 40.2 hours for men, resulting in a difference of 6.6 hours per week between the sexes; this is not surprising given that a higher proportion of women worked on a part-time basis.

In every region of the EU, men spent more time at work than women

The average number of hours worked per week by men was systematically higher than the number worked by women in each of the NUTS level 2 regions for which data for 2014 are available. Map 7 shows a close relationship between the average number of hours worked and the incidence of part-time employment. Those regions characterised by high shares of (female) part-time employment tended to record the largest differences between the sexes in relation to average hours worked. The gender gap was most pronounced in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria, with men working at least 10 hours more than women in 20 regions of the United Kingdom, 17 regions in Germany, eight in the Netherlands, and three in Austria. The biggest difference was recorded in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, where an average man worked 44.2 hours per week, compared with an average of 29.7 hours for each women.

By contrast, those regions where there was a relatively low propensity to employ people on a part-time basis were characterised by small differences between the sexes in relation to their average time spent at work. This was particularly true in the eastern regions of the EU and in the Baltic Member States, but was also the case in Portugal and the Nordic Member States, where there was a higher propensity to employ on a part-time basis (although this was spread between the sexes).

There were 35 NUTS level 2 regions (shown by the lightest shade in Map 7) in the EU where, on average, men worked less than 2.5 hours per week more than women. They covered the Baltic Member States (single regions at this level of analysis) and every single region of Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, as well as all but one of the regions in Romania, three regions in Portugal, two each from Greece and Slovakia, as well as the autonomous Spanish city of Melilla.

Data sources and availability

The subjects covered by gender statistics span a wide range of issues. In order to obtain more information on the data sources employed, please refer to these subject-specific articles that form part of the Eurostat regional yearbook:

Context

Gender inequalities (differences between the sexes) have been shaped through history as a result of ideological, historical, cultural, social, religious, political and economic factors. In recent years, there has been a considerable increase in the proportion of women who are active in the EU’s labour market. Indeed, earning one’s own living is one of the principal ways to achieve economic independence and these changes are likely to contribute to women’s empowerment.

Legislative framework

Since 1957, equality between women and men has been one of the fundamental values of the EU, enshrined in its Treaties and in the 2009 Charter of Fundamental Rights. A wide-ranging legislative framework exists to promote gender equality, including: employment opportunities, working conditions, equal pay and social security benefits.

In 2006, the [[Glossary:European Commission %2528EC%2529|European Commission]] adopted a ‘Roadmap for equality’ (COM(2006) 92). This was followed in 2010 by the adoption of a ‘Women’s charter’ (COM(2010) 78). Later the same year, the Commission adopted its ‘Strategy for equality between women and men, 2010-15’ (COM(2010) 491). The latter was composed of five key areas: equal economic independence for women and men; equal pay for work of equal value; equality in decision-making; dignity, integrity and ending gender violence; and, promoting gender equality beyond the EU.

Every year the European Commission reports on progress made in achieving equality between men and women through the publication of an annual report (which includes a range of gender equality indicators). The European Commission also aims to raise awareness on the issue of equal pay through initiatives such as European Equal Pay Day.

Europe 2020

Although the Europe 2020 strategy does not have any specific gender-based targets, it does promote a range of policies that address the sexes. Europe 2020 emphasises the need to reduce health inequalities as well as to ensure better access to healthcare systems, while the strategy for equality between women and men goes beyond access issues and focuses on addressing gender-specific health risks and diseases as well as tackling gender-based inequalities in healthcare and long-term care.

Skills are addressed in the Europe 2020 flagship initiative ‘A Digital Agenda for Europe’, which looks at the gender gap in digital literacy and skills and calls for the IT sectors to become more attractive to young women.

Within labour markets, the Europe 2020 strategy seeks to increase labour market participation, especially among women, and to lift women out of poverty or social exclusion. However, there are a range of constraints that may prevent or hold back progress, these often centre on the ability of women and men to reconcile their professional and private lives. For this reason, policy developments include the promotion of accessible and affordable childcare facilities and the removal of fiscal disincentives for second earners.

Further Eurostat information

Other information

Communication of the European Commission COM(2006) 92 final of 1 March 2006 on A roadmap for equality between women and men 2006-2010.
Communication of the European Commission COM(2010) 491 final of 21 September 2010 on A strategy for equality between women and men 2010-2015

External links