A report by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), commissioned by the German Presidency of the EU Council, was forwarded to the national delegations by Berlin on Friday 16 October.
This 100-page report focuses on gender inequalities in the distribution of paid and unpaid work in the care sector. A reality exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic (see EUROPE 12470/16) and more topical than ever as the EU Council works on draft conclusions on the evaluation and distribution of paid and unpaid care work between men and women.
Care work is defined in the annex to the report as “all activities and occupations which directly and indirectly involve care processes”: work carried out by professionals in return for financial compensation, but also activities undertaken without pay, in particular within the home or with relatives.
For example, in the context of the Covid-19 crisis, “the workload of caregivers has exploded, from single parents caring for their children at home to nurses caring for patients in hospitals”, the report details.
This work, both paid and unpaid, is largely the responsibility of women. Health professionals - among the lowest paid professionals in the EU - are 76% female. In addition, 92% of women in the EU are ‘regular carers’, providing unpaid care at least several days a week, and 81% are daily carers - compared to 68% and 48% of men respectively.
These caring responsibilities hamper the employment prospects of women, who are more likely to work part-time, in temporary and low-paid jobs and are under-represented in large companies and at management level, the EIGE says.
Some 7.7 million women are estimated to be kept out of the labour market by these responsibilities - compared to only 450,000 men.
The burden of unpaid care work performed by women is, moreover, according to the EIGE, one of the main factors contributing to the gender pay gap. Currently, the average gross hourly wage for women in the EU is 16% lower than for men.
Among the elements of response envisaged by the EIGE and which could inspire the Presidency in its conclusions are, in particular, the adoption of measures to strengthen the existing legal framework in the Member States on the provision of care, the promotion of a fairer distribution of unpaid care within the household, the development of a European strategy on social assistance and social protection and greater investment in the care sector.
To view the report: https://bit.ly/2T7bjZp (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)