Unequal care, Unequal work:  Structural discrimination against women in the labour market

Unequal care, Unequal work:  Structural discrimination against women in the labour market

Media Release

International Women’s Day

Brussels, 8 March 2026

On this 2026 International Women’s Day, COFACE Families Europe highlights key recommendations to move towards gender equal labour markets, and calls on the EU to adopt a European Work-life balance day on 20th March every year. In November 2025, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the EU Gender Equality Strategy. The resolution stresses the need to implement an ‘equal earner – equal carer’ model in the EU with the aim of achieving a more equal gender balance concerning care responsibilities for all EU Member States. Recent research confirms that discrimination against women in the labour market is structural, cumulative, and closely linked to unequal care responsibilities. Read the full media release here. 

According to research of the PATHS2INCLUDE consortium of universities under the Horizon Europe programme, reducing gender employment gaps requires transforming the unequal distribution of unpaid care. Evidence shows that persistent gender inequalities in employment are closely linked to care responsibilities and social norms. Effective gender equality policies at EU and national level must include a series of work-life balance measures for women and men, including adequate childcare and long-term care services, well-designed and well-paid parental leave, flexible work arrangements, and measures that encourage men’s take-up of care responsibilities.

Without such measures, exclusion of women from the labour market will persist in recruitment practices, working-time arrangements, career progression, and work-exit pathways that systematically disadvantage women – particularly mothers and carers. These disadvantages are reinforced by social norms, insufficient care services, and forms of flexibility that transfer care risks onto women rather than redistributing them equally between women and men.

Labour market exclusion is further compounded by intersecting factors such as age, health, migration background, and job quality, leading to unequal access to employment and increased insecurity over the life course.  As a result, gendered labour-market inequalities accumulate into higher risks of poverty and financial insecurity for women in later life, with direct consequences for families’ and children’s well-being.

COFACE President, Antonia Torrens:

“Tackling women’s exclusion requires a life-course, intersectional, and care-sensitive approach that combines equal treatment and anti-discrimination enforcement with labour-market, care, and social protection policies that enable the equal sharing of paid work and unpaid care.”

A mix of measures is needed to support reduction of inequalities and promotion of gender equal European labour markets.

• Integrate flexible work arrangements in workplace policies – these not only allow for greater flexibility, but they also lead to less care-based discrimination in employers that apply these.
• Expand access to affordable childcare and promote gender-equal parental leave policies encouraging more equal sharing of care responsibilities between parents.
• Ensure that family centres and hubs across Europe are father-inclusive, and accessible to all types of families without discrimination.
• Actively challenge gender stereotypes and norms around caregiving and work, by supporting both fathers who choose to be more involved at home and mothers who seek full-time and/or leadership positions.
• Highlight diverse role models in awareness campaigns, media, education, and workplaces to accelerate the normalisation of non-traditional gender roles.
• Encourage employers to adopt measures against discrimination in hiring mothers, including training on diversity management, inclusive hiring practices or mentoring programmes.
• Tailor policies at the regional level. As cultural attitudes vary significantly between and within countries, tailoring strategies to local values and challenges will be more effective than applying one-size-fits-all solutions.