Spain, labour market gender

As for Spain, the financial and economic crisis originated from the construction sector due to the enormous ‘real estate bubble’ consequent to economic policy measures implemented in the years preceding the crisis outburst. In fact, between 2008 and 2010, 46% of the job layoffs concerned the construction sector; 33% were registered in the manufacturing sector, and 16% in wholesale and retail trade: all of these economic sectors are considered to be male-dominated. For this reason, 79% of total job losses were absorbed by men between 2008 and 2010. Afterwards, as the financial crisis continued to propagate between 2011 and 2013, other economic sectors were compromised as were female jobs, which absorbed 34% of the layoffs. As for traditionally female-dominated activities – i.e. education and human health and social work activities – these experienced an employment rate growth between 2008 and 2010 (4% and 8.6%, respectively) but endured the impact of the crisis between 2011 and 2014 (-4.5% and -3.1%, respectively). 

As for labour gender segregation, it diminished between 2007 and 2010 as a consequence of employment evolution in the sectors of construction, public services, social services, and other services, which represent the explanatory factor of 68% of total segregation. 

Formal childcare total coverage is at acceptable levels if compared to Barcelona Targets but it has slightly decreased for children up to the compulsory school age: by 4 p.p. for children aged 0-2, reaching 35%, between 2011 and 2013; by 2 p.p. among children aged 3-6 between 2012 and 2013. Furthermore, for children between 6 and 12 years old, there is a decreasing trend from 100% in 2011 to 97% in 2012. 

The total GEI improved between 2005 and 2010 (from 48.7 to 53.7) and slightly declined afterwards (53.6). Eventually, considering the Sub-index Work, it can be reported that it improved substantially between 2005 and 2010 (5.9 points) and further increased until 2012, although only by one point (reaching a 51.1 score). The segregation sub-index of the Sub-index Work experienced a relevant evolution from 20.5% in 2005 to 22.6% in 2010, reaching 23.6% in 2012. This seems to be related more to the impact of the crisis on maledominated sectors.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2016/571358/IPOL_STU(2016)571358_EN.pdf