GENDER TYPOLOGIES ON EUROPEAN LABOUR MARKET

Women and men often have very different labor market experiences. Women are often assigned disadvantageous roles/positions compared to men, being paid less per hour, working fewer hours outside the home, and entering different occupations than men. These labor-related gender discrepancies may lead to a perpetuation of inequalities in other areas: general welfare, pension security and health, etc. Starting from this aspect, the present paper aims to analyze the particularities of women's role, position and behavior in the labor market at European level and to identify the factors that lead to the persistence of labor gender differences. A clustering of European countries is carried out in order to identify the main typologies of countries regarding women's participation profile in the labor market, under the impact of drivers related to the life style, cultural-religious values, legal practices and gender role-sharing. The research was carried out on statistical data provided by Eurostat, covering 29 European countries. The first typology is characterized by approximately the same contribution of both sexes to the economy, but they differ in their involvement on labour market. Women often work on short-term and/or part-time contracts and in large companies. The second one is characterized by similarly involvement of both sexes on the labour market: women work in small and medium sized companies and many women are entrepreneurs. The third one is characterized by a higher contribution of men to the economy: men are employed with unlimited employment contracts and are better educated than women, and most entrepreneurs are men.