In 2023, the share of part-time employees aged 20-64 in the EU was 17.1%, a slight increase from 16.9% in 2022. Looking back at the last 10 years, the share of part-time workers recorded a slow but steady downward trend, from 19.1% in 2014 and 2015 to 16.9% in 2022. and it only increased last year.
The proportion of part-time employment for men has remained stable at around 8% during this period, but for women the proportion decreased by 3.9 percentage points (pp), from 31.8% in 2014 to 27.9% in 2023.
The largest proportion of part-time workers were women with children
In 2023, around a third (31.8%) of employed women aged 25-54 with children in the EU were working part-time, in contrast to 20.0% of employed women without children. In contrast, among men, only 5.0% of those with children worked part-time compared to those without (7.3%). Therefore, the difference in the proportion of part-time work between women and men with children was a significant 26.8 percentage points in 2023 and, for men and women without children, it was less than half, at 12.7 percentage points.
The largest gap between women and men with children was recorded in Austria, with a difference of 61.2 percentage points (69.2% vs. 8.0%). Germany and the Netherlands followed, with differences of 57.2 and 54.8 percentage points. These three EU countries also have the highest proportions of women with children working part-time.
Romania is the only EU country where the proportion of men with and without children working part-time is higher than that of women: 2.9% and 3.5% for men with and without children compared to 2.4% and 2.7% for women with and without children.
Data shows that the proportion of employed women with children working part-time exceeds that of women without children in all EU countries except Denmark, Finland, Latvia, Greece and Romania
More information at EUROSTAT
