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

  •  frostbiker   ( @frostbiker@lemmy.ca ) 
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    1 year ago

    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”.

  •  Turun   ( @Turun@feddit.de ) 
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    91 year ago

    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.

        • Because it is a good way of measuring gender equality. Basicly it shows how many women stay at home as housewives. Also it takes age into account, so women just living longer and therefore being a majority of pensioners is not an issue.

          •  kungen   ( @kungen@feddit.nu ) 
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            21 year ago

            How does it measure equality though? Like, what does being a housewife have to do with equality? Are you assuming that the majority of housewives in Europe actually want to be something else?

            The majority of nurses are women for example. But is this because men are being discriminated against, or that men simply don’t study nursing as often as women? Coming to equality arguments via a single statistic paints wrong pictures.

            • When you are a housewife you do not earn your own money and are depandend on your husband. That is also true for pensions, which often are paid out to the person, who actually did earn money. So if the relationship is in trouble, housewifes have a much harder time leaving their husbands then women who work. That means the relationship is naturally unequal with the husbands being in the stronger position.

              Basicly you have to reason for that. One is outside forces. If men have an easier time finding jobs, then you have this situation. On the other hand it is how traditional a country is and well that only has indirect consequences on gender equality.

              But I still find it fair to say that men do love their children, actually want to spend time with them and are perfectly capable of doing housework. No reason to presume husbands should be less willing to stay at home then women all other things being equal.

              • So if the relationship is in trouble, housewifes have a much harder time leaving their husbands then women who work. That means the relationship is naturally unequal with the husbands being in the stronger position.

                Is that true? In developed countries parents who are the primary caregivers of children do not only get 50% of the assets in a divorce, but they also obtain alimony and financial support for their children, all paid for by the other parent. Even when both parents are working, the majority of judges give child custody to the mother.

                In addition to that, there are women’s shelters to cater specifically to women. Can you find even a single men-only shelter in your town, or a governmental agency that caters specifically to men in similar situations?

                In other words, on average it is less difficult for a mother to divorce than for a father.

        • 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.

  •  Wirrvogel   ( @Wirrvogel@feddit.de ) 
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • I’m not really sure that we should be inferring much based on the results on this map. It seems reasonable to me to make an argument that locations with a higher degree of religiosity tend to have less women in their workforce. Is that a problem for those people? I don’t know, I’m not them.

    My personal beliefs about the workforce have jack-shit to do with what’s going on in highly religious countries.

    • It’s not a problem if it’s a choice, but the question becomes whether it really is a choice.

      Is it a choice if financial support means it is not possible to be equal without personal sacrifice. Is it a choice if there is societal pressure to conform. Is it a choice if male salaries are higher in general, and then self perpetuating. Is it a choice if there is no access to affordable or free childcare. Is it a choice if the father has no right to take parental leave?

      Is it a choice if women are not allowed to drive, like in Saudi Arabia? Is it a choice to wear the burqa or niqab, like in Iran?

      We shouldn’t confuse choices made under the guise of religion with personal choices people would make if religion wasn’t imposed in them. Sure, some would choose either way, but a more equitable society is a more free society. Some more religious countries used to have no divorce, so domestic violence persisted. People “chose” to stay with their abuser. When separation and divorce was legal, many chose to leave.