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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
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
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”.
Even if I just accept your claim about men taking a worse career hit for leaving the workforce to raise their children…
Why are men taking a worse hit? Sounds like some kind of social injustice.
“You woman will take less of a career hit than I, so you should be the one to stay home and I’ll continue my career”
I obviously agree, since it affects me personally. But the prevalent narrative around the employment gap is centered about how it affects women, ignoring how it affects men as well, and I’m trying to offer a more complete view.
That speech is very problematic, but how prevalent is it? You could have imagined this alternative:
“I want to take care of the kids, and since it’s not a big deal you man will have to keep working even though you also want to raise your family”
It’s made up, but so is yours.
Jup, it’s pretty bad for all who do not conform to the social expectation.
When a woman has a five year employment gap she is normal. If a man has a five year employment gap it’s suspicious. Saying “I raised my kids” should ideally be enough to justify it, but nevertheless that’s five years of experience other men have.
(This is incidentally also the largest factor of the gender payment gap. Both sexes are paid almost the same until children get into the picture. Most likely the woman will stay home and lose years of experience that their partner will get.)
Are you nuts? Women take a massive hit to their careers just for having the potential to take time to have babies.
Let’s make a different assumption. Let’s assume equal rates of desire for taking time to be with family among men and women. You would then see equal rates of employment between men and women. This map shows that’s not true and so if my assumption is true then there’s a problem for both genders.
Instead of assuming anything, let’s poll and gather some evidence. How many men/women are employed/unemployed against their choice? What makes them take that difficult decision? What sorts of policies could help more people achieve what they want, rather than somebody else’s preconceived idea of what they should be doing?