Work-life balance as a condition of equal participation of women and men

in the labour market

November 11, 2013, VilniusMs Virginija LANGBAKK

Director of the European Institute for Gender Equality

Women are disproportionately responsible for care activities

Women are less likely to participate in the labour market

Can reconciliation help?

"… If you asked me if I would stay at home with the kids and she would go to work, I find this unimaginable and I wouldn't like this… In fact, yes, this would be humiliating for me to know that my wife is the breadwinner. But also because I think that children need their mother more in the early years than their fathers".

A man from Hungary, 22 years old

69.0

76.6

62.2

FTE employment

Duration of working life

Sectoral segregation

Flexibility of working time

Health and safety

Training at work

The difference between Women and

men in FTE participation in the

labour is of 15 percentage point in all Member States

EU-27, 2010

41%56%

Full-time employment

69.9

"… If you asked me if I would stay at home with the kids and she would go to work, I find this unimaginable and I wouldn't like this… In fact, yes, this would be humiliating for me to know that my wife is the breadwinner. But also because I think that children need their mother more in the early years than their fathers".

A man from Hungary, 22 years old

38.8

45.5

33.0

Childcare activities

Domestic activities

Sport, culture and leisure activities

Volunteering and charitable activities

38.8

Many more women than men

spent, on average, one or

more hours a day on housework and

cookingEU-27, 2010

Can reconciliation help?

Parenthood and employment Having children, on an EU average, decreases the employment rate of women by more than 10% compared to women without children, while men with children have a higher probability to work.

Eurostat, EU LFS.

Benefits

Reductions in public expenditure on benefits in relation to care work perpetuate the uneven distribution of unpaid care work between women and men

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

Decision-makers are usually men and these are the people that need to be impacted. They must be made to feel responsible for the changes that need to be brought about’. (Nicos Peristianis, sociologist, Chairman of the Board of the University of Nicosia

Background Study on the Involvement of Men in Gender Equality within EIGE's working areas (2011)