The socio-economic fallout of the coronavirus crisis has uncovered gender gaps in Spain’s job market that hit women with children under 15 particularly hard. Employment figures, hours worked each week and numbers in furlough schemes are some of the findings of the active population survey, and also of surveys on the distribution of housework and childcare during the pandemic, comparing men and women in the same groups. These are some of the figures presented in the new policy brief  “Work and children in Spain: the challenges and opportunities of equality between men and women” by Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela, senior fellow at the Esade Centre for Economic Policy (EsadeEcPol) and research economist at LSE, and Claudia Hupkau, assistant professor at CUNEF. The authors of the EsadeEcPol report point out the need for tax incentives and policies that can narrow these gender gaps by enabling mothers to continue their professional careers unhindered and reduce the drawbacks of motherhood. They also mention the importance of paid leave for fathers in order to increase men’s involvement in unpaid housework and childcare.

Gender gaps in the job market

The EsadeEcPol policy brief reveals that although the difference between the employment levels of men and women has declined over the last fifteen years in Spain, women continue to lag behind in certain aspects. Unemployment amongst women remains 2.5 points higher and has fallen more slowly since the Great Recession (from 2013 onwards) than amongst men. The percentage of women working part-time has more than trebled in comparison with men (23% vs 7%) in the last decade, whilst the gap between women and men on temporary contracts has widened since 2015 (27% compared to 25% in 2019); and only 3% of women in Spain hold posts at the highest level (approximately half of the percentage of men in this range).

The situation is worse for women with children. According to EsadeEcPol, by the end of the second decade of this century, women with children under 15 are 7.5 more likely to have part-time jobs than men with children in the same age range; twice as likely to be unemployed; and 20% more likely to have a temporary job. The unprecedented characteristics of the current crisis have highlighted these indicators even more: whereas the employment rate and hours worked each week fell between 2019 and 2020 by a similar rate for both men and women without children, in the last quarter of 2020, the employment rates of men with children bounced back to 2019 levels, whilst the employment levels of women with children dropped by 2.3 percentage points. Similarly, in 2020, between April and June, 16% of men with children were furloughed, whereas almost 20% of women with children were furloughed.

As regards the time spent on different activities during the coronavirus pandemic, data show that women are more likely to be in charge of housework and childcare tasks, even if both parents work during confinement. It is estimated that the gender gap as regards childcare increased by more than an hour during the pandemic. In addition, EsadeEcPol points out that it is highly unlikely that the preferences of men and women can, in themselves, explain these differences in the job market: more than one third of women with children under 5, and more than half of the women with children aged 5 to 15 who work part time, would like to work longer hours.

Policies to encourage life-work balance and equality

On the basis of this evidence, EsadeEcPol suggests the creation of policies that make it easier for women to be working mothers and reduce the drawbacks of motherhood. Incentives in the form of tax breaks for working mothers, and free or subsidised childcare for young children, would encourage women to go out to work and have an impact on the number of hours worked. Such policies would also have the potential to improve current fertility rates, which are very low in Spain.

EsadeEcPol also emphasises the importance of the longer, non-transferable paternity leave that has recently begun to be implemented in Spain. According to the study, such leave increases the numbers of women in the job market, their employment and their income, whilst increasing men’s involvement in household and childcare at the same time, and this could help close the gender gap in the home too.