Higher education reduces gender employment gap
For women with low education, as the number of children in the household grew, their employment rates decreased. The gender employment gap increased from 26.1 percentage points (pp) for 1 child to 35.8 pp for 2 children and 42.1 pp for 3 or more.
At medium education levels, employment was higher overall. Still, the gender gap widened progressively with the number of children, reaching its largest among adults with 3 or more children (33.0 pp gap), as employment rates stood at 58.9% for women vs 91.9% for men.
Even among those with higher education, women with children did not reach the same employment levels as men. In households with 2 children, women’s rate was 88.0% vs 96.7% for men (8.7 pp gap), and in households with 3 or more children, the gap was relatively wider, with 81.8% vs 95.4% (13.6 pp gap). This shows that a high level of education is associated with higher employment rates and a reduced gender gap.
Source dataset: lfst_hheredch
As the data show, the presence of children in the household had a distinct impact on employment rates for women and men. For women, the employment rate decreased as the number of children increased. In contrast, for men, the presence of children was associated with a higher employment rate compared to those without children.
This article concludes our series marking the International Women’s Day. Please check our other articles as well:
For more information
- Statistics explained article on women in the EU
- Thematic section on employment and unemployment
- Database on employment and unemployment
- European Pillar of Social Rights action plan
- Thematic section in equality and non-discrimination
- Webinar on gender statistics
- Podcast episode on looking at data on women in research and innovation
Methodological notes
- Gender employment gap is defined as the difference between employment rates of men and women aged 25–49.
- The educational attainment levels in this article are classified according to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED): low level of education refers to ISCED levels 0-2 (less than primary, primary and lower secondary education), medium to ISCD levels 3 and 4 (upper secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education) and high to ISCED levels 5-8 (tertiary education). The level of educational attainment means the highest level of education successfully completed.
- The indicator measures the employment rate of all adults aged 25–49 living in households, broken down by sex, level of education and presence of children in the household.
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