The Region of Central Greece posted the highest gender employment gap in all of Europe in 2022 at 31.4 pp, according to a report released last week by Eurostat.
The gender employment gap is defined as the difference between the employment rates of men and women aged 20-64 and stood at 10.7 pp on average in the EU in 2022. In 2019, the EU set a goal to halve the gender gap by 2030 and one in five EU regions have so far met the target. However, half of all the regions with a difference in excess of 20 pp are located in Greece.
The gap can be attributed to a number of reasons including unpaid care responsibilities mainly falling to women, hiring discrimination, a scarcity of women in leadership roles, inadequate childcare facilities, tax disincentives and occupational segregation.
