More women are working in Belgium, yet Belgium still lags behind the rest of Europe: How come?

Research by Ghent University shows that more women are working in Belgium today than 10 years ago. Still, Belgium is losing ground compared to other European countries. The proportion of women in work in Belgium stood at 63 per cent in 2015, matching the European average at the time.

‘Today, that European average stands at 71 per cent, whilst in Belgium the figure is 69 per cent,’ explains Stijn Baert, professor of labour economics at Ghent University.

The fact that the employment rate for women in Belgium is rising more slowly is not good news for our overall employment rate. ‘We were already lagging behind when it came to men, but thanks to women we were able to more or less keep pace with Europe. Now there is a significant gap.’

There are various reasons for this gap.  Just think of the high taxes on Belgian wages. ‘A single woman or a woman with children who works part-time in the Netherlands is much more likely to be economically inactive here. That is because in the Netherlands, the first hour of work pays off immediately. Here, all sorts of benefits are immediately ruled out.’

‘And in the past, we were ahead of Eastern and Southern Europe in terms of women’s emancipation. Because they are now catching up with us, we lost that advantage over the past 10 years.’

The low employment rate in Belgium among people of non-EU nationality is also significant. ‘This is particularly clear among women. Migrant women from outside the EU have a very high rate of inactivity. This is due to discrimination, but also to educational attainment and personal socio-cultural choices.’

Is family credit the solution?

Still, there is one clear reason why women choose to work less or not at all. ‘Men’s and women’s careers follow the same path until children come along. Caring responsibilities then automatically fall more heavily on women. You see this much less with fathers.’

‘Women themselves say that they scale back their careers or switch to part-time work when they have children. That is a personal choice. But maternity leave that is automatically extended when a child is ill is not a personal choice, and that is a problem.’ This problem also crops up elsewhere in Europe.

Although there is a potential solution to break this stereotypical pattern: family credit, based on the Scandinavian model. ‘The idea is to combine maternity leave, paternity leave, and parental leave, all those types of leave into a single fund. Grandparents are also included in the Scandinavian system. This allows a genuine discussion to take place within the family about how to share the care.’

The federal government has been considering the introduction of family credit for some time, as one of the measures to get the budget on a sound financial footing. ‘I therefore hope that this measure will be introduced soon. I don’t think there is any reason to delay it’ says Baert.

Childcare at work

Another problem is the shortage of nurseries. Here too Baert is looking to Scandinavia for solutions. ‘In another study, we demonstrated that both women and men would be willing to take a pay cut if their employer helped arrange childcare.’

Employers could align working hours with childcare hours. ‘Or it would also be interesting if the employer set up a childcare system of their own, with the facilities then being paid for by the employer in exchange for a portion of gross pay.’

‘You could compare it to a company car. And in this way, you can lower the barrier for women with children to take on more work.’