The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the inequities that still exist in society, and especially in the gender division of work.  During the pandemic, whether it’s caring for elderly relatives or young children, or homeschooling older children, the burden has fallen disproportionately on the woman of the household.  Sometimes this has meant shouldering this burden on top of their job, sometimes it has meant reducing hours or quitting altogether.

Research from Esade explores the situation in Spain in-depth and comes to a similar conclusion.  The report highlights that the Spanish labor market has undergone a significant transformation in the last 25 years, with female participation soaring.  Indeed, in 1990, you might have around 50 active women for every 100 men, but by 2019 this has risen to 88 for every 100 men.

While this trend is positive, the report suggests that women remain behind men in other key areas.  For instance, the data shows that women are around 27% more likely to be unemployed, 10% more likely to work under temporary contracts, and around 2.5 times more likely to be working part-time.  While the overall employment measure has improved in recent times, these have barely changed, suggesting perhaps that while the quantity of work has increased, the quality has not.

Types of jobs

The gender gap was also stubbornly persistent with regards to the types of jobs both men and women hold.  For instance, there has been little progress in terms of Spanish women holding senior positions over the past decade, while women continue to dominate occupations such as domestic workers and cleaners.

This is despite the fact that women have overtaken men in terms of education, with 50% of women aged between 25 and 34 having a degree compared to just 38% of men.

Despite this, inequalities persist and especially for people with children.  For women with children, they are 7.5 times more likely to be working part-time than men, and twice as likely to be unemployed.

The authors suggest that this apparent “motherhood penalty” could be because after parenthood, women take roles with family-friendly traits, such as flexible hours, which tend to be lower paid.  This is illustrated by the fact that even when family-friendly policies are introduced, such as flexible working, they are predominantly taken up by women, and indeed men are often subtly discouraged from doing so.

Traditional roles

Indeed, it’s only likely that this situation will change when traditional gender roles are changed.  The importance of this is illustrated by the fact that a third of women with children under 5 said they would like to work more, with this figure rising to 50% for those with children aged between five and 15.  Indeed, the majority of women with children cite childcare responsibilities as the main reason why they don’t work more.

It’s clear that there is a need for policy to make it that much easier for women to combine work and family, while also providing greater financial incentives for working mothers.  These have been shown to have a positive impact on job market outcomes.

These need to be matched, however, with changes in culture within workplaces themselves that still presume working mothers will be distracted by parenthood and working fathers galvanized by it.  While there has been much progress made in improving equality in the labor market, it’s clear that there is a long way still to go and society is still failing to capitalize on the huge talent going to waste.