The survey reveals that women workers are paying a high price for the crisis. In several member states, sectors with a robust feminine workforce (i.e. public administration, education, healthcare and textiles) are undergoing changes that worsen both the quality and the quantity of available work. As a policy option to reduce public deficits, many governments have introduced austerity measures that have impacted disproportionately on women who make up a large part of the public sector workforce. Other negative effects that the ETUC survey shows relate to the increase of precarious work, with a rise of atypical working contracts being offered especially to young female workers. The economic crisis is hitting women financially (where wage freeze took place), physically and psychologically (with a stronger perception of insecurity and concern of losing jobs accompanied by increased stress and workload because of redundancies).

“There is an urgent need to look at the gender dimension of the economic crisis and to adopt measures that will strengthen the position of women in the labour market. Female employment has been an important element of Europe’s growth in the last years and policy measures to contrast the damages generated by the economic crisis should aim at reinforcing equality between women and men and not exacerbate gender segmentation of the labour market” says John Monks, General Secretary of the ETUC.

The results of the ETUC “8th of March” survey on the impact of the crisis on female employment will be presented at the next ETUC Women’s Committee and made available on the ETUC website at the end of March.