Work and children in Spain: Challenges and opportunities for equality between men and women

Despite overall convergence between men and women in labour market participation rates, women still fare worse than men, with no visible improvement on the gender gap in the last 15 years on at least three key dimensions:

• The unemployment rate remains around 2.5 points higher for women, with data showing a slower decrease of unemployment after the Great Recession (2013 onwards) for women than for men.
• For the last decade, women with part-time contracts have been more than tripling men’s share (23% vs. 7%).
• Around 27% of women held temporary contracts in 2019, vs. 25% of men, featuring a widening gap since 2015.

The situation is further aggravated for women with children. By the end of the 2010s decade, women with children under 15 years of age are about:

• 7.5 times more likely than men (with children of the same age) to work on part-time contracts,
• twice as likely to be unemployed, and
• 20% more likely to hold a temporary contract