The Core Aspects Of Working Life And Social Developments Across The European Union In Modern Times

I shall be reflecting on the key aspects of working life and social developments across the European Union in contemporary times. The main reading, I am using will be Benchmarking Working Europe 2018.

The main argument I found throughout the readings was about the employment rates, gender quality and is there a difference for the different age groups. According to stats taken from 2005 till 2016 there are far more men employed than women in Europe. Then percentage of men employed stays around 72% region while the woman’s have started to rise from 55% to 62% in 2016. It is hard to imagine how in Europe the gap between men and women in employment is basically 20%. But the tide is turning as year by year woman’s percentage is getting higher and higher which is now starting to even itself out in some countries. There can be a number of reasons why this is so but it could be simply be down to culture. Also another reason why there is such a significant gap could be down to motherhood. If a woman wants to have kids some day and work at the same time, then there could be consequences. The main consequence could be that the mother asks for a more flexible work schedule. Some employers might see that as something they are losing out on and fire them. That is why so many women could be unemployed.

A second aspect I got from the reading is that in Europe there are more temporary or part time work. From 2013 to 2017 young people had a fairly big increase in temporary employment. Even growing up in Ireland in 2018 from knowing people my age temporary contracts are on the rise. There can be a few factors why this Is so. It could be down to the company not having enough hours for you, not having enough revenue for a full time contract or simply don’t have any demand for it. Even around Christmas time stores would hire in people on part time contracts to cover the busy season. So when the busy period is over most of the part time staff is let go. But there is the exception which some places give them another temporary contract for a few months. Over Europe the part time rate has fallen in some places but risen in more. Austria and Greece had the biggest increases in men into part time work. This can be down to the economy in their country. The Netherlands has the highest part time rate in the EU: 27% among men and 76% women. AS time moves on the technology in factories or places of work will be moving on and on. This is a very good reason why some companies keep part time and full time employee’s. Also in some places of work they will start to becoming more automated with less need for workers.

Another aspect I have found by reading this document Is that monetary poverty is on the rise. Monetary poverty is when the disposable income of a family is below the at-risk-of-poverty rate. In 2017 the EU had an average rate of poverty which was 17. 3%. In Europe if there is a person who is unemployed they would have less money to use for food, clothes, bills, car or for themselves. This would put them under the average income to stay above the at-risk-of-poverty rate in their country. So if they were a parent or the person in charge of getting an income then this could cause problems. The family would then have the label of being “poor” yet they have a house and food. In European countries there is help out there to help families in need. Across Europe some member states had a high percentage of unemployed people being at risk of poverty. Germany 70%, Lithuania 61%, Latvia 56% and Sweden 50%. It would be surprising to see Germany and Sweden in this list as people would think of they couldn’t be poor countries. This is not really saying the country is poor this is saying that people who are unemployed might become poor. Poverty has this feeling off exclusion. Throughout Europe there are people who would not like to associate themselves with people who are under the poverty line. Why? Well because they might think that if they are receiving help from someone that people would try avoid them as they might ask them for some help.

Lastly I found that the gap between the gender of those who receive a pension is big. After reading this I found that women receive different percentages less than men which means a woman’s average pension is lower than a man’s. On average in the EU28, the pension gender gap for those aged 65 years old and over was 38% in 2011. To me this seems wrong as both male and female should receive the same rates. But one big reason that this could be is in fact that there is more woman in an aging population.

So to conclude I found in the reading that the employment rates were more men employed than women. I also found that there is a big change in part time, contract and temporary employment for younger people. Lastly when reading through the whole document I found that there are more gender gaps in all ways of life. There were more men employed in full time work, there were more men getting a better pension than a woman’s and so on. It’s not just with these that there are gaps but in all of life across Europe there seems to be gender gaps which has been supported by this document in different aspects of the working life.