In 2023, the share of part-time employees aged 20-64 in the EU was 17.1%, a slight increase from 16.9% in 2022, according to data from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

This increase breaks a decade-long trend of gradual decline, as the share of part-time employees had fallen from 19.1% in 2014 and 2015 down to 16.9% in 2022 before this recent uptick.

Meanwhile, the share of part-time employment for men has remained stable at around 8% throughout this period, but for women, the share decreased by 3.9% from 31.8% in 2014 to 27.9% in 2023.

In 2023, approximately 31.8% of employed women aged 25-54 with children in the EU were engaged in part-time work, in contrast to 20.0% of employed women without children.

Conversely, among men, only 5.0% of those with children worked part-time compared to the ones without children (7.3%).

The difference in part-time work shares between women and men with children was, therefore, 26.8% in 2023, and for men and women without children, it was less than half, with 12.7%.

The biggest gap between women and men with children was registered in Austria, with a 61.2% (69.2% versus 8.0%) difference. Germany and the Netherlands followed with 57.2% and 54.8% differences. These three EU countries also have the highest shares of women with children working part-time. 

Romania is the only EU country where the share of men with and without children working part-time is higher than the women’s shares: 2.9% and 3.5% for men with and without children versus 2.4% and 2.7% for women with and without children.

Further data show that the share of employed women with children working part-time exceeded that of women without children in all EU countries except Denmark, Finland, Latvia, Greece and Romania.