Female participation in the EU has increased by about 20 percentage points since the early 1980s, reaching 68 per cent in 2017. This reflects various factors: technological progress that has reduced the time required for unpaid household work, greater availability of flexible working arrangements, increased supply of affordable childcare services and more sharing of household work between men and women.
With reference to the US, the contribution of female employment to the occupational structure will be the focus of one of the papers to be presented this morning. 2 The second driver is increased education, a feature that is positively associated with labour market attachment.