No job favors for women
The Greek labor market is still a long way from equality for the sexes in the workplace, as women continue to receive evidently lower salaries, unemployment affects them far more than men and few are found in senior managerial positions. According to a study by the Bank of Greece, carried out in collaboration with the Department of Economics at the University of Athens, women’s salaries average out at about 75 percent of those of men and are often lower in identical positions. Men also have a longer working life; the average age of salaried men is three years higher than women’s, while they have five years more work experience. Women represent 52.2 percent of both office staff and unskilled workers, but only 1.3 percent of working women are found in senior executive and administrative posts, filling just 20 percent of them. However, positions of senior managerial assistants are almost equally divided among women and men (49.7 percent and 50.3 percent respectively). Despite a rise in recent years, only 50.1 percent of women are officially included in the country’s economically active population (including the unemployed), 26.5 percent less than men and 10.8 percent lower than the average European rate. The data show that unemployment affects them more, as 42.5 of them have jobs, compared to 71.4 percent of men and an average European rate for women of 55.6 percent. The European Union’s so-called Lisbon agenda has set a target of 60 percent for 2010. The figure for unemployment among Greek women aged 15-24 is 34.3 percent, while the respective European average is estimated at 15.5 percent; 8.1 percent of women have part-time employment, usually in positions that offer them limited pay and career prospects. Only 2.3 percent of Greek men have part-time jobs, against a European average of 6.5 percent. Greece also appears to have the highest rate of disparity between male and female employment in the European Union, 30.2 percent. Finland has the lowest at 6.9 percent.
