Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union

E2: Environmental statistics and accounts; sustainable development

e-mail contact : ESTAT-SDI-EU2020-INDICATORS@ec.europa.eu

The indicator is part of the EU Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicator set. It is used to monitor progress towards SDG 5 on gender equality and SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth.

In order to promote women’s social and economic empowerment, SDG 5 calls for, among other things, recognition and value of unpaid care and domestic work, equal rights and access to economic and natural resources, technology, basic and financial services and property. One of the principles addresses that women and men shall have equal access to special leaves of absence in order to fulfil their caring responsibilities and be encouraged to use them in a balanced way. SDG 8 recognises the importance of sustained economic growth and high levels of economic productivity for the creation of well-paid quality jobs and the achievement of global prosperity.

The European Pillar of Social Rights aims to deliver new and more effective rights for citizens and builds upon 20 key principles. Ensuring equality of treatment and opportunities between men and women is a key concern of the Pillar. Beyond existing legislation, positive action is required in all areas in order to foster proactively equality between men and women.

The indicator measures the reasons why individuals are not actively seeking work, so they are neither employed nor unemployed and considered to be outside the labour force. This definition used in the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) is based on the guidelines of the International Labour Organization (ILO). While several reasons may exist why somebody is not seeking employment, only the main one is considered. "Inactivity due to caring responsibilities" refers to the reasons ‘looking after children or incapacitated adults’ and ‘other family or personal responsibilities’.

% of inactive population aged 20 to 64, by sex

Calendar year.

The indicator is produced according to the high-level quality standards of European Statistics. Details on accuracy can be found in the metadata of the source datasets (see link to related metadata).

ESS (LFS)

Data source: ESS Labour Force Survey (LFS)

Data provider: Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, based on data reported by the countries.

Every year

The indicator is updated annually in April.

T+1 year

New data points are disseminated within one year after the reference year.

All EU MS

Data are presented for all EU Member States plus the United Kingdom, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, North Macedonia and Turkey.

All EU MS

Data are comparable between all EU Member States respectively other presented countries.

> 10 years

Presented times series (including EU aggregates) starts in 2000.

> 4 data points

Length of comparable time series without methodological break is more than 4 data points.

Analysis of indicator is presented in Eurostat's annual monitoring report on Sustainable development in the EU (progress towards SDGs in the EU context).

See table  sdg_05_40

Eurostat dedicated section on SDGs: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/sdi/overview

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