The employment rate of women in Cyprus, just as in the rest of the EU, is lower than that of men, Eurostat figures show.
Published on Friday, two days before International Women’s Day which is celebrated on March 8, Eurostat’s figures also show women are more likely to work part time than men.
Cyprus’ gender employment gap — that is the gap between the employment rate of men and women — in 2018 stood at 10 percentage points according to figures issues by Eurostat on Friday focusing on women’s employment in the EU.
According to Eurostat, in 2018, the employment rate for women (aged between 20-64) in the European Union stood at 67%, one percentage-point (pp) increase from the previous year and 5 pp higher than in 2008. However, the employment rate for women was still 12 pp(*) less than the corresponding rate for men of the same age.
Among EU Member States, Sweden had the highest employment rate for women (80%) in 2018, whereas Greece (49%) and Italy (53%) reported the lowest rates.
Cyprus’ employment rate for women was 69%. It stood at 79% for men.
Across all Member States, the employment rate for men was higher than that of women. Nevertheless, this gender employment gap has narrowed from 15 pp in 2008 to 12 pp in 2018.
The gender employment gap varied significantly across EU Member States in 2018. The highest gaps were recorded in Malta (22 pp) and Greece (21 pp), while the lowest gap was observed in Lithuania (2 pp).
Female unemployment rate still higher than male unemployment rate
In 2019, the unemployment rate for women in the EU was 7.1%, higher than the rate for men which was 6.4%. Among EU Member States, the women’s unemployment rate varied; ranging from 16.0% in Spain to 2.4% in Czechia.
In Cyprus, the unemployment rate for women was 8% compared to 6.3% for men.
Women are more likely to work part-time
One-third of employed women were working part time (30%) in the EU in 2018, nearly four times the rate for men (8%). A similar pattern was observed across all Member States. The highest share of employed women working part-time was recorded in the Netherlands (74%), while the lowest share was in Bulgaria (2%).
In Cyprus, 14.2% of employed women worked part time– nearly twice that (7.4%) for men.
Source dataset:Â lfsi_emp_a, une_rt_a and lfsi_pt_a
