A 'News Release' published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, on the occasion of the International Women’s Day on 8 March 2011 gives an indication of the breakdown about the make-up of the 200 million private households in the EU27. It throws some light on the questions of; what share of the households consist of single women with or without children; what proportion are couples, and how does the number of children affect the employment rate of both mothers and fathers; how do women perceive their health status different from men.
There were just over 200 million private households in the EU27 in 2009, of which 25% consisted of couples without children, 22% of couples with children2, 17% of single women without children, 13% of single men without children, 4% of single women with children, 0.5% of single men with children and 19.4% of other types of households.
The figures for Spain suggest that 21.5% of households are made up of couples without children, whilst those with children account for 25.9%. What may seem surprissing is that single women without children account for 10.5% of households, more than single men without children which comes in 2.4% less at 8.1%. When it comes to single parents, women account for 2.3% whilst for men the figure is 0.5%.
On the question of how employment is affected by the number of children in a household, the results show that the employment rate of women decreases in relation to the increase in the number of children, whilst for men the trend is opposite. The employment rates for women and men vary differently according to whether they have children or not. The employment rate for women aged 25 to 54 decreases as the number of children increases, while for men in this age group the pattern is almost the opposite.
In Spain in 2009, the employment rate for women aged 25 to 54 without children was 68.4%, while the rate for those women with one child was 63.2%, compared with 60.3% for those with two children and 49.0% for those with three children or more. These percentages range from 8.9% to 5.7% below the averages for the European Union 27 countries as a whole. For men in this age group the respective numbers are, without children 72.5%, with one child 80.2%, with two children 84.7% and 75.5% for those with three children or more.
Another question covered by the news release is the difference between how women and men perceive their state of health. In Spain in 2008, 69.0% of women and 76.9% of men aged 15 and over declared they had very good or good general health, both groups being higher than the EU average. For the other catagories of state of health, 21.4% of women and 17.1% of men said they had fair general health, while 9.6% of women and 6% of men stated they had bad or very bad health. In all EU member countries men declared a better general state of health than women.
For more detailed analysis of the European Union 27 countries as a whole, or for individual menber states, the Eurostat News Release can be read in full at: 1-04032011-AP-EN.PDF application/pdf Object
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