While the EU average gap between male and female employment rates stood at 10.0 percentage points in 2024, Romania's disparity reached 18.1 percentage points, placing the country among the bottom three performers in the union.
The gender employment gap—defined as the difference between the employment rates of men and women aged 20 to 64—has shown diverging trends across the continent. While 22 EU nations managed to reduce this gap over the last decade, Romania experienced a regression.
Between 2014 and 2024, the gap in Romania increased by 0.6 percentage points, contrasting sharply with the overall EU trend, which saw a decline of 1.1 percentage points.
Only Italy (19.4 percentage points) and Greece (18.8 percentage points) reported wider disparities than Romania. In stark contrast, nations such as Finland (0.7 percentage points) and Lithuania (1.4 percentage points) have nearly eliminated the divide.
Furthermore, Eurostat highlighted that women across the EU are more likely to be engaged in part-time work (27.8% compared to 7.7% for men) or held under temporary contracts. These structural imbalances suggest that while male employment remains robust at 80.8% across the EU, female participation continues to face significant systemic hurdles.
