Household duties are still preventing women from furthering their careers and getting into senior management roles, new reasearch has found.
A survey conducted by Cambridge University, based on 30,000 workers in the 27 EU countries, found that gender inequality persists in the workplace, having hardly changed in almost two decades.
Women are working longer hours performing household duties such ascleaning and childcare, which often means they take on more part-time work and lower-paid roles, and sacrificethe opportunity to break into top management jobs.
The report, Gender and Working Conditions in the European Union, said that despite British female workers making up just under half of the workforce, fewer than one in six had senior management roles.
Brendan Burchell, who led the study, said: “The working lifestyles of most people in Europe still seem to be determined by gender.
“Gender segregation in employment is pronounced, and this widens the gender pay gap. In many cases, we were struck by how little the results for the longer-standing EU nations like Britain, Germany and France have changed since 1991,” Burchell added.