Archive:Statistics on employment characteristics of households

Data extracted in January 2020.

Planned article update: June 2020.

Highlights

In 2018, about 39% of women in the EU aged 25-49 with a child under 5 years worked on a part-time basis compared with 5% of men.

In 2018, around 27% of self-employed people in the EU with employees were women.

In 2018, people in the EU usually worked on average 37.1 hours a week in their main job.

Private households by working status, 2018 (% of private household) - Source: Eurostat (lfst_hhnhwhtc)

This article presents some of the main results from the EU Labour force survey (LFS) for the European Union (EU) as a whole, for all EU Member States individually, as well as for three EFTA countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) and four candidate countries (Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey).

This article complements the articles Employment Statistics, Employment rates and Europe 2020 national targets, Underemployment and potential additional labour force statistics and Unemployment statistics and beyond. It consists of two sections: the first part focuses on the labour market characteristics using household information, while the second part is dedicated to specific individual components.

Full article

Labour market analysis using household information

In most households all adults are working

The most common household type in the EU-28 in 2018, seen from a labour market perspective, was the household where all adults were working (45.0 % of all private households) (Figure 1). This was followed by the household where none of the adults were working (35.0 %). In the remaining 20.0 % of the households, at least one adult was working.

Among the EU Member States, in 2018, Sweden had the highest percentage of households where all adults were working (64.3 %), Greece had the highest percentage of households where no adults were working (44.4 %) and Croatia had the highest percentage of households where at least one adult was working (34.1 %).

For further information about household composition see: Statistics Explained article Household composition statistics .

Figure 1: Private households by working status, 2018 (% of private household) - Source: Eurostat (lfst_hhnhwhtc)

Having children affects the part-time employment rate

Whether or not a person has children in the household does effect the way he or she participates in the labour market. The number of children and the age of the youngest child influence furthermore the participation in the labour market. Figures 2 and 3 show these effects for the male and female population separately, as these differ considerably. Note that all results are limited to persons aged 25-49 years, so that different national situations for being a pupil, student and/or retired person do not influence the results and do not compromise the comparability between countries.

In 2018, more than 1 in 3 women (aged 25-49 years) with children worked on a part-time basis in the EU-28 (35.4 %). Figure 2 shows that the share of part-timers differs greatly between men and women and that this difference by gender becomes even bigger when persons have children. In all countries, the proportion of women with children that are employed on a part-time basis is higher compared to men. The gap between men and women with children for the part-time work rate was 30.3 percentage points (p.p.) in the EU-28 in 2018. Concerning men and women without children, the gap is smaller (10.6 p.p.).

In Romania and North Macedonia, differences between men and women and between people with and without children, are rather small. In these two countries, the proportion of part-time workers is low. In Denmark, Finland, Greece, Slovenia and Portugal, there are almost no differences in the share of part-time work between women with or without children. However, the most common pattern is that having children does influence the female part-time work rate. For example, in Germany 24.2 % of women without children worked part-time in 2018 vs. 65.3 % of women with children, in Austria these rates were 28.1 % vs. 65.6 % and in the United Kingdom 15.5 % vs. 51.3 % . This suggests that women in these countries tend to shift to part-time work from the moment they have children.

Figure 2: Part-time employment by sex and existence of children, 2018 (% of employed aged 25-49 years)- Source: Eurostat (lfst_hhptechi)

The age of their youngest child further influences the proportion of women working part-time, as shown in Figure 3. In the EU-28, 39.1 % of women (aged 25-49 years) in employment and having one or more children, of which the youngest child is 5 years or younger, worked part-time in 2018. The corresponding figures for women where the youngest child is 6-11 years old and 12 years or older is 36.3 % and 29.0 % respectively. By contrast, the part-time work rate of men (aged 25-49 years) having children is, relatively seen, not affected by the age of the youngest child: it nearly always stays below 10 %. The only exception is in the Netherlands, where 17.3 % of men with a youngest child of 5 years or younger, 13.2 % with a youngest child aged 6-11 years and 12.2 % with a youngest child aged 12 years or older, worked on a part-time basis. In addition, the Swedish part-time employment rate of men having their youngest child aged 5 years or younger (9.8 %) is more than twice that of men having their youngest child aged 6-11 years (4.7 %) and aged 12 years or more (3.5 %).

Moreover, the higher the number of children in a household, the higher the part-time employment rate of both men and women, especially where the youngest child is aged 11 years or younger.

Figure 3: Part-time employment by sex and age of the youngest child, 2018 (% of employed aged 25-49 years) - Source: Eurostat, EU Labour Force Survey, special calculation made for this article.

Source data for tables and graphs

Data on Labour Market and Labour Force Statistics

Data sources

Source: the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) is a large sample, quarterly survey providing results for the population in private households in the EU, EFTA and candidate countries. Conscripts in military or community service are not included in the results.

Reference period: Yearly results are obtained as averages of the four quarters in the year.

Coverage: The data for France cover the metropolitan territory (excluding overseas regions). Country codes: Belgium (BE), Bulgaria (BG), Czechia (CZ), Denmark (DK), Germany (DE), Estonia (EE), Ireland (IE), Greece (EL), Spain (ES), France (FR), Croatia (HR), Italy (IT), Cyprus (CY), Latvia (LV), Lithuania (LT), Luxembourg (LU), Hungary (HU), Malta (MT), the Netherlands (NL), Austria (AT), Poland (PL), Portugal (PT), Romania (RO), Slovenia (SI), Slovakia (SK), Finland (FI), Sweden (SE), the United Kingdom (UK), Iceland (IS), Norway (NO), Switzerland (CH), Montenegro (ME), North Macedonia (MK), Serbia (RS) and Turkey (TR).

European aggregates: EU refers to the sum of EU-28 Member States and EA to the sum of the 19 euro area Member States. If data are unavailable for a country, the calculation of the corresponding aggregates takes into account the data for the same country for the most recent period available. Such cases are indicated.

Definitions: The concepts and definitions used in the survey follow the guidelines of the International Labour Organisation.

Employment covers persons aged 15 years and over (16 and over in Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom, 15-74 years in Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and 16-74 years in Iceland), living in private households, who during the reference week performed work, even for just one hour, for pay, profit or family gain, or were not at work but had a job or business from which they were temporarily absent, for example because of illness, holidays, industrial dispute or education and training. The LFS employment concept differs from national accounts domestic employment, as the latter sets no limit on age or type of household, and also includes the non-resident population contributing to GDP and conscripts in military or community service.

•Self-employed persons with employees are defined as persons who work in their own business, professional practice or farm for the purpose of earning a profit, and who employ at least one other person.

•Self-employed persons without employees are defined as persons who work in their own business, professional practice or farm for the purpose of earning a profit, and who do not employ any other person.

•Employees are defined as persons who work for a public or private employer and who receive compensation in the form of wages, salaries, fees, gratuities, payment by results or payment in kind; non-conscripted members of the armed forces are also included.

•The distinction between full-time and part-time work is generally based on a spontaneous response by the respondent. The main exceptions are the Netherlands and Iceland where a 35 hours threshold is applied, Sweden where a threshold is applied to the self-employed, and Norway where persons working between 32 and 36 hours are asked whether this is a full- or part-time position;

•Unemployment covers persons aged 15-74 (16-74 in Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and Iceland) who were not employed during the reference week, were currently available for work and had either been actively seeking work in the past four weeks or had already found a job starting within the next three months.

•Reason for inactivity is the main reason why somebody is not seeking employment. The main reason may or may not be the only reason. Only the main one is retained for analysis in this article.

Definitions of indicators reported in this publication are available on the EU-LFS Statistics Explained website: EU Labour Force Survey (Statistics Explained)

Context

The EU-LFS is the largest European household sample survey providing quarterly and annual results on labour participation of people aged 15 and over as well as on persons outside the labour force. It covers residents in private households. The EU-LFS is an important source of information about the situation and trends in the EU labour market.

Each quarter around 1.8 million interviews are conducted throughout the participating countries to obtain statistical information for some 100 variables. Due to the diversity of information and the large sample size the EU-LFS is also an important source for other European statistics like Education statistics or Regional statistics.