Luxembourg has lowest share of female managers across EU

Luxembourg has the lowest share of women in managerial positions across all EU Member States, according to the latest Eurostat report into the life of women and men in Europe.

Looking at statistics from last year the report, published last week, shows only 18% of managers in Luxembourg are women – sitting at the bottom of the list across all EU28 countries and below the 33% EU average.

The percentage of women in management was below 50% across all Member States, the highest scorers being Latvia with 47% followed by Poland and Slovenia at 41%. Following Luxembourg with the second lowest percentage were the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Greece all coming in at a 25% share.

More women study longer

Statistics also showed more women stay in education for longer than men. Across the EU 33% of women completed tertiary education compared with 29% of men.

But Luxembourg shows less differences, with 42.4% of women aged between 25 and 64 in further education compared with 42.9% of men within the same age bracket.

These figures are higher than the EU average of 32.5% for women and 28.9% for men. The report showed hardly no difference between men and women at lower education.

In 2016 the employment rate was higher among men than women across the EU and differences between gender employment rates increased with the number of children.

For people aged between 15 and 64 without children, 72.6% of men and 63.5% of women living in Luxembourg were in employment. For those with one child, 78.2% of men and 69.2% of women worked.

But when it came to men and women with more dependents there was greater disparity. A total of 89.9% of men with two children worked while 73% of women in the same family situation were in employment. For those with three or more children, 80.9% of men in Luxembourg had a job compared with 65.8% of women.

There was also a difference in the percentage of men and women on part time contracts in the EU. A total of 32% of women worked part time compared with 9% of men. The countries with the highest rates of male part time employment were the Netherlands with 26% and Denmark at 17%.

Luxembourg had smallest difference in gender earnings

Looking at average earnings dating from 2015, the report shows women earned 16.3% less than men when comparing their average gross hourly wages.

While on average women earned less than men in all Member States, Luxembourg, together with Italy, had the smallest difference in earnings between genders, with a 5.5% difference. This was followed by Romania with 5.8% and Belgium with 6.5%. The countries with the largest salary differences were Estonia at 26.9%, the Czech Republic at 22.5% and Germany with 22%.

The report stated that part of the earnings differences can be explained by individual characteristics of employed men and women, such as experience and education, and by sectoral and occupational gender segregations.

"Consequently, the pay gap is linked to a number of cultural, legal, social and economic factors which go far beyond the single issue of equal pay for equal work," it stated.

(Heledd Pritchard, heledd.pritchard@wort.lu, +352 49 93 459)