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Gender employment gap, 2022
(i.imgur.com)
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
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?