The gender gap is especially notorious in the labour sphere, characterised by a combination of different factors that negatively affect women in relation to men: higher unemployment, lower wages, greater seasonality and employment precarity, lower visibility, and a lesser presence in management posts and positions of power, among others.

On the one hand, female unemployment (15.55%) is higher than male unemployment (12.23%). In this sense, the situation suffered by women at the helm of single-parent families stands out (according to the data from the report #Monomarentalidad y empleo (Single-motherhood and employment) by the Adecco Foundation, some 82% of so-called single-parent families are led by women). The study warns that 46.4 percent of women caring for a child are unemployed, while this percentage increases to 75% in the case of single mothers with three children. Moreover, in all age groups, a gender gap exists in terms of unfavourable employment for women: out of 19.9 million employed people in Spain, only 9.1 million are women, which leads to an occupation differential of over eleven percentage points.
 

Furthermore, employment precarity in Spain affects women more greatly. Firstly, the female population occupies, mainly, the positions belonging to the worst valued and worse remunerated sectors and those with the highest precarity indexes. This is due fundamentally to the tertiarization of female employment: 88% of people employed in the services sector are women. Secondly, nonremunerated activities such as household chores, childcare, and care of dependents, are taken on largely by women. This means that they cannot take the option of employment or, if they do so, they may be obliged to involuntarily interrupt their working hours and their professional careers. Thus, the female part-time employment rate rises to 23.8%, very much higher than the male rate (7%), and over 25% of employment contracts signed by women are for temporary work. In this way, “extreme precarity”, understood as the combined precarity of seasonal work and part-time work, affects 9% of women, while affecting only 4% of men, according to data from trade union UGT.

The wage gap due to gender issues is another of the major (negative) signs of this fracture. It is appropriate to clarify that, within the framework of this report, wage gap is understood to mean the resulting percentage from dividing two amounts: the difference between the wages of men and women, divided by men’s wages. The different methodologies for calculating the wage gap put it at around 22%, as estimated by trade union UGT, and 15.1%, according to the INE and Eurostat. These figures exceed the European average and, in this respect, Spain occupies the sixteenth position in the classification with regard to the wage gap by gender. Furthermore, women are over-represented at the lowest wage levels: some 30% of female wage-earners are situated among the 20% of workers that earn the least, while this percentage is reduced to 11.5% in the case of male wage-earners.

This situation is, together with other factors, the cause and explanation of the higher levels of economic vulnerability that are suffered by women. The female collective, like collectives such as young people, migrants, and older workers with low levels of education, are the great losers of the economic crisis and those who have most suffered its consequences over the last decade, as indicated by the eighth FOESSA Report on Exclusion and Social Development in Spain, from the year 2019.

In terms of average income, women earn lower incomes, which thus means they are overrepresented in the poorer strata of the population: while 31.2% of women are situated in the lowest incomes group (30% of total income), barely 28.6% of men are found in this group. If the female poverty risk rate or social exclusion rate is used (according to the INE’s AROPE indicator), it is noticed that this rate stands at 27%, nearly two percentage points higher than the male rate (25.1%). Furthermore, in the case of young women, the rate rises to 37.2%. In total, some 22.2% of women live below the poverty threshold, versus 20.9% of men; some 5.5% of women suffer material deprivation, against 5.3% of men; and 11.2% of women, versus 10.1% of men, live in households with low labour intensity.

One of the most significant pieces of evidence regarding the greater economic vulnerability of women is their lower level of social protection. The fact that the current social protection model is very closely linked to contributions, means that female coverage by the system is lower. On the one hand, this is reflected in contributory pensions, where the gap is nearly 35% (1,213.64 euros is the average monthly pension in the case of men, and 794.94 euros, in the case of women), including retirement pensions, where the difference is 34%. Furthermore, some 82.17% of those who are in the group with average pensions, totalling between 150 and 450 euros, are women. In relation to survivors’ pensions, over 90% correspond to widow’s pensions, but the average amount of these pensions barely reaches 733.16 euros. Moreover, most non-contributory pensions correspond to women (65.41%), whose average pension stands at 383 euros; in the case of invalidity, it reaches 422 euros.

If the rates of cover of the unemployment benefits offered by Spain’s State Public Employment Service (SEPE) are observed, in 2019 these totalled 68.4% for men and 58.2% for women, on top of an average benefit that is 14% lower for women. Within this context, it is worth underlining the role represented by social spending, which in Spain totals just 16.6% of GDP, below the eurozone average; especially, social spending targeting families and children (0.7% of GDP). In fact, the report Effectiveness and Equity in Social Spending. The Case of Spain, published by the IMF in January 2020, highlights the need to re-organise social spending, which does not adequately ponder certain factors such as single-parent homes or number of children.

The gender gap is clearly manifested in different aspects of personal or family life. This is especially true in areas such as personal, family, and work reconciliation within the sphere of the so-called care economy, due to the majority of household tasks and the care of dependent persons, or of the whole family, being taken on by women. These activities are sustained, often without recognition or economic compensation, mainly by women. According to data from the Social Observatory of ”la Caixa”, women are responsible for some 39% of all market production in Spain while, in contrast, they bear the burden of 67% of nonremunerated production.

When analysing in detail the distribution of time by gender, it is observed that the fact that women devote nearly double the hours per week to nonremunerated activities is not related with the hours they devote to paid employment. Women add these nonremunerated work hours to their working hours, so that they effectively are working, on average, 63 hours and 36 minutes per week, versus the 56 hours and 36 minutes per week worked by men, according to data published by the INE.

According to data from ClosinGap, women in Spain devote two hours more to the home and family than men do. Overall, the female population devotes over double the number of hours to these nonremunerated activities, specifically 87 million hours per day, versus 37.5 million hours per day devoted by the male population. Furthermore, according to the CIS barometer of May 2017, only two out of every ten men share these tasks on equal terms with their partners.

It is worth pointing out, furthermore, that over 95% of those who opt for working voluntarily on a part-time basis to devote themselves to the care of dependent people are women. With respect to women in a situation of inactivity, some 91.7% of them decide not to enter the jobs market because of “family responsibilities or personal reasons”, whereas this percentage accounts for only 8.03% in the case of men.

At this point, motherhood is a key factor. Its implications are related, firstly, with women’s greater devotion to nonremunerated work and, secondly, to the consequent involuntary interruption of their professional careers. Numerous investigations coincide in pointing out the link that exists between motherhood and the pay gap, as well as other realities, such as the so-called glass ceiling. In the article “La brecha salarial en España se amplía tras la maternidad (y ahí se queda)” (The wage gap in Spain widens after maternity, and remains wide) published on the blog Nada es Gratis, García Hombrados and González Luna explain how “the incomes of fathers maintain the same tendency following the birth of their first child, whereas those of women suffer a heavy fall in the first two years, which they do not recover from during the period studied. By the end of five years, the gender gap that has opened with respect to the initial year is 17%”. In a report on this same area, by the Bank of Spain, a divide is indicated that rises to 23% by the end of five years. Also, as observed in figure 6, produced based on a research study by Kleven, Landais and Søgaard (2017) for Denmark– which was widely reported in the different media – having children is related with a greater wage gap.

However, this is no voluntary option, because time reconciliation is a problem that, in many cases, represents a hindrance for the advancement of women’s careers and not for those of men. In Spain, according to UGT, some 93% of leave for childcare is requested by women who, furthermore, devote double the time that men devote to household chores and to caring for family members and children. On average they work, over the course of their working career, 1.1 hours per day more than men. According to data published by the previous Ministry of Employment and Social Security (MEYSS) for the first half of 2017, some 98% of women who enjoyed maternity leave did not share it with the other parent.

In the private or business sphere, different indexes or indicators, such as the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index (GEI) or the latest data published by the association European Women on Boards (EVOW) and by the Spanish market regulator Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV), reflect the broad margin for improvement in terms of visibility and leadership of women in management boards and bodies. For example, just 30 of the 600 largest listed companies in Europe comply with criteria of parity, as their boards of directors have an average of just 33% of female representation.

Specifically in Spain, in relation to the data provided by the CNMV, the percentage of women in the management boards of IBEX 35 companies in 2019 stood at 27.6%, undeniably insufficient, although eight points above the figure obtained in the year 2013. Only 4% of managing directors of IBEX 35 companies are female executives, which translates into a clear lack of female empowerment and of effective and real decision-making by women.

This dynamic is reproduced if the company size is defined and the data from the latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report on female entrepreneurship is studied, as is how the number of women entrepreneurs has progressively increased in Spain. Currently, over 650,000 women, aged between 25 and 34 years, are leading business initiatives, but these levels remain much lower than the average values in the eurozone. For example, in the digital and technological enterprise sector, barely 17% of start-up companies have been founded by women. Furthermore, such women have faced greater obstacles than their male counterparts in their entrepreneurial activity, such as lesser economic support, a lack of visibility, cultural problems, a lack of female leader figures to follow, etc.

In the political sphere, a progressively more balanced presence is observed between the two sexes, with special mention of Spain’s last coalition executive, made up of 11 women and 12 men, including the president of the Government, which represents a balanced distribution in which women represent 48% of the total.

Nevertheless, there are some traditionally male-dominated responsibilities, such as the ministerial posts for Justice, Defence, and Industry, despite the fact that, currently, the latter two ministries are headed by women. Separate mention is merited by the Ministry of the Interior, which has never been occupied by a woman. However, if the spectrum is broadened, it is confirmed that, despite the fact that the female presence in the Spanish Congress and the Senate had been improving, the rise of the far right has meant that Spain’s Congress no longer has the highest gender balance in Europe and fifth highest in the world, according to data from UN Women. Finally, it is worth highlighting that the interest that women declare to have in politics is 16% less than that manifested by men.

Thus, though bearing in mind that there is still a long way to go in progressing female representation in all public and private management bodies, the efforts made to date in Spain and the milestones achieved cannot be overlooked.

Societies are immersed in a fourth industrial revolution, with the digital inundating everyday life. This situation, while opening up new opportunities, is posing important challenges that could have a greater impact on the more vulnerable sectors of the Spanish population. The starting point is different for men and for women. By way of example, currently only 30% of professionals in the ICT field are women, whereas labour demand for such professionals is growing unstoppably at 3% year on year.

Incorporating women into the technological and digital sector is urgent. For this, it is important to highlight one of the most important factors found at the origin of this gap: education. While women have a higher average level of education than men, they are very much underrepresented in courses in the STEM areas. If this tendency in not reverted, in Spain, a deficit of 3 million professionals with ICT or STEM knowledge is forecast for this year 2020, according to the Libro blanco de las mujeres en el ámbito tecnológico (White paper on women in the technology sector), published by the Secretary of State for Digital Advancement in March 2019. This gap is even greater in basic vocational training, where training cycles in information and communication technologies are the option chosen by 17.8% of women who enter this level of learning. The same thing happens with intermediate and higher education, where barely one in every ten students are women.

In this sense, one of the results extracted from the PISA report is especially discouraging: the lack of confidence shown by Spanish girls with regard to embarking on courses in science and technology. The report refers to this phenomenon as “proficiency in sciences”; this factor means that there are fewer women who wish to work in the ICT field.

The study Científicas en cifras (Women scientists in figures), produced by the FECYT (Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology) and published by Spain’s previous Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities in 2017, enables observation of how the evolution of women’s labour participation in the high and mid-high technology sectors of industry is not very positive. If the aim is to continue advancing, then one of the most important factors found at the origin of this gap must be targeted: education, as has been indicated previously.

Along with the technological revolution, the other major global challenge is the climate emergency. It is crucial, in this sense, to introduce a gender perspective into both its analysis and the policies promoted to fight climate change. Women have a lower carbon footprint than men, but it is women and girls who suffer the main impacts of this emergency most because of their very role in society and their situation of greater vulnerability. The female population is the most threatened by extreme temperatures, natural disasters, and climate migration, as well as by fuel poverty. Given this situation, a total of 45 countries have committed to making gender equality and female empowerment into key pillars in the fight against climate change. Thus, at the last COP25 Climate Summit, held in Madrid in 2019, it was agreed that a new Gender Action Plan would be drawn up, that would enable this equality to be guaranteed.

A wave of feminism is travelling the world. The crowds demonstrating on 8 March and the #MeToo movement are evidence of the key moment being faced by feminism, whose transformative potential is enormous. Feminism is one of the main tools for change in the 21st century: a “purple tsunami” with a clear and shared slogan: achieving real and effective equality between women and men. There are currently people talking about post-feminism, supposing that there will be greater integration and social proximity thanks to opportunities offered by new technologies and platforms; this is what could be called an “interconnected and globalised feminist movement”. This is the reality that Nuria Varela reflects upon in her book Feminismo 4.0. La cuarta ola.

This feminism 4.0 poses important challenges, such as answering the question of what is the cost of opportunity, in economic and talent-loss terms, of the gender gap. The World Economic Forum estimates that global GDP could increase by 5.3 trillion dollars by the year 2025 if female economic participation were to improve by 25%. For its part, the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) has confirmed that greater gender equality could mean an increase in staff hiring of between 0.5 and 0.8 percentage points by 2030 and of up to 2.1 and 3.5 percentage points by 2050.

Another of the challenges facing feminism is the role of men. Closing the gender gap means putting an end to the patriarchy, in other words, to a society in which the figure and the power of men are predominant over those of women. This is a complex task if what Celia Amorós defines as “meta-stable patriarchal pacts” are taken into account. These represent the continuous transformation of the patriarchy in adapting to different phases and perpetuating its dominant role, or “gender socialisation”, which represents the transmission of different gender cultures, values, and stereotypes, and means that women are associated with certain roles in society. Men should be direct participants in the search for effective equality, in order to find their own new space. In parallel, society must be capable of adapting to a new reality of equality, through the feminisation of society as a whole.

The gender gap is not a problem of ideology, nor one of personality; it is not even a biological issue. It originates in a social fracture, with different implications, that could be considered one of the most relevant political problems that exists today. Just as it has often said that “the personal is political”, so the feminist movement is aiming to transfer existing problems or needs into the public arena. When attempting to tackle this gap in Spain, it must be accepted that it poses a public problem, one that needs to be approached from every angle, including the political angle. Equality between men and women is not only a fundamental right but, also, it is considered the basis for sustaining a society of wellbeing that is equal, fair, and free, and capable of responding to the challenges that lie before it.

There are diverse analyses and opinions in relation with these aspects, just as there are differing viewpoints and focuses that are manifested in this sense, but it is not the aim of this report to conduct any rigorous study of these, but to promote debate in order to be able to arrive at the drawing up of appropriate policies from the most in-depth knowledge.

After having analysed the gap that exists between women and men for reasons directly related with gender, and then having covered different spaces or spheres that are affected by it, such as the economic, labour, personal and educational spheres, etc., this section aims to contribute a reflection regarding what the main aspects or points are that should be tackled from both the public and the private spheres of society. To produce these reflections, a series of women experts were invited to participate in a debate and to propose measures with which to tackle this serious divide and try to put an end to it. From their different contributions, it can be concluded, first of all, that a deficit exists when including a gender perspective in current public policies. Furthermore, still prominent today are gender stereotypes and roles that continue to pigeonhole women in the role of non-professional carers, the negative consequences of motherhood on the working life of women, as well as a society in which machoistic and sexist behaviours and realities still persist in spaces of economic, political and social life. Among these reflections, prominent is the need to develop policies to encourage employment, minimum incomes to tackle the exclusion of women with family burdens, support for time reconciliation or, of an urgent nature, palliative actions that contribute, at least, towards tackling severe problems of child poverty, especially in single-parent families.

In the business sphere, the spotlight is placed on the important role of non-transferable paternity and maternity leave, although it is necessary to continue advancing towards a complete cultural change. For this purpose, it is fundamental that companies and men play an active role. The idea is that companies advance progressively towards a new egalitarian reality. In this reality that companies must face, the expectations of workers, men and women alike, with respect to their family life and the assuming of care tasks, must be increasingly similar. However, this demands, furthermore, cultural changes in companies that facilitate the development of upwardly mobile professional careers, which are compatible with people’s family responsibilities.

The care economy is, precisely, one of the major issues that focused the debate that was held. Altering the current situation requires a cultural change that must take place from childhood, in homes, and from an education based on equality. Advances must be made, furthermore, towards co-responsibility rather than just time reconciliation, and towards the assuming of care tasks by men, including the care of older family members.

With respect to the gender differences in economic activity, the key point for debate was the guarantee of equality in access to employment. For this, it is fundamental to act from the earliest stages of education, in order to destroy stereotypes and gender roles linked to the different training areas and professional capabilities. Furthermore, it is necessary to highlight, improve visibility of, and socially recognise activities traditionally performed by women, by increasing their wages and improving their employment conditions.

Considered crucial is the dependency system, for which it is necessary to have sufficient budgetary resources, as well as to guarantee its role as a pillar of the welfare state. The reflection, furthermore, opens up towards the necessary professionalisation of care tasks.

As for the aspects of the debate most focused on the future, it is considered crucial to include the gender focus in education in order to put an end to stereotypes, and so that women can be protagonists in key activities for the near future, such as in STEM and ICT disciplines. This means, for example, having female references among the teaching staff of these study areas. So that young women can complete in equality in the jobs market of the 21st century, companies in the technological and digital sector must develop inclusive practices, such as equality in recruitment processes, equality policies, job flexibility, training programmes for retaining female talent, etc.

In short, the authorities, businesses, and society as a whole, must become more aware that it is not possible to assume the loss of half of the talent pool, so necessary in a transformation like the present one.

Below is a list of proposed solutions, based on the reflections and opinions generated within the context of the debate. There is no inference that these are the result of any consensus agreement or uniform opinion among all the women experts who participated:
 

Economic and business sphere: the role of women
 

1. Incorporation of a gender perspective into the design of the General State Budgets.

2. Guarantee of a minimum living wage, a non-contributory social security benefit, as the ultimate social protection safety net.

3. Ratification of ILO Convention 189 on domestic workers, full inclusion of women in the General Regime of the Social Security system and compliance with Royal Decree-Law 6/2019:

   •    Equality in remuneration.

   •    Protection of female workers in situations such as pregnancy or gender violence.

4. Design and execution of public policies (promotion of employment, minimum income, fighting situations of violence, vulnerability, etc.), taking into account the gender perspective in a cross-disciplinary way, coordinated between the employment services and social services.

5. Implementation of gender quotas in professional recruitment and promotion, as well as positive action measures to alleviate imbalances between women and men, with sanctions in case of non-compliance.

6. Implementation of training programmes to retain female talent in posts related with new technologies.

7. Consideration of economic and fiscal measures to promote the incorporation of a gender perspective into business management, such as subsidies and tax credits.

8. Reactivation and promotion of the wages register established in Royal Decree-Law 6/2019, of 1 March.

9. Strengthening of Work Inspection and Social Security resources.

10. Incorporation of equality clauses into the public contracts system, so that all ministerial departments and public bodies make the obtaining of funding conditional on respect for parity and equality.

Care economy and time reconciliation sphere
 

1. Expansion of public services linked to the welfare and care of dependent people, such as nursery schools and centres for the elderly, health, and education.

2. Equal and non-transferrable maternity and paternity leave.

3. Awareness-raising mechanisms, plus sanctions in case of infringement, such as favouring flexi-hours, hours banks, teleworking, shifts, etc.

4. Reinforcement, through economic and human resources, of the Autonomy and Dependency Care System, through the General State Budgets, to put an end to the concept of the care economy as nonremunerated work.

5. Professionalisation of care activities and of the role of carers.

Personal sphere: the role of education in the eradication of technological inequality

1. Special training for teaching staff in equality skills, for the different undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses. Revising of curricula, contents, educational materials, etc., from a gender perspective, in order to eliminate sexist stereotypes. Incorporation to a greater extent of women’s contributions to STEM areas and promotion of different applications of these disciplines in society, among others.

2. Promotion, support, and funding of the drawing up of programmes and plans for equality between women and men in education, at all scales (schools, municipalities, autonomous communities and state-wide).

3. Design of educational campaigns and policies, aimed at primary and secondary education, to dismantle stereotypes and fight sexism and gender roles with regard to personal and professional abilities. There should be emphasis on areas especially vulnerable to sexism, such as language and communications; internet and social networks (to fight the sexist hate discourse); the media, advertising, and other communication products and services; job positions; public sectors and, specifically, the justice sector; educational institutions; culture, and sports, as well as the private sphere.

4. Application of new training orientation plans during secondary education, with the consideration of gender focus.

5. Implementation of a national inter-sectoral continuous training plan for teachers in STEM, to facilitate the closing of the gap between pupils and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics subjects. This plan could become a powerful tool for promoting teaching staff.

6. Promotion of women teaching on courses in the STEM areas so that students have more reference points of their own sex in these fields.

7. Production of information campaigns and promotion of new technologies in the educational, social, and extracurricular environment (campuses, summer camps, marathons, competitions, etc.).

8. Generation and visibility of new reference points during childhood.

9. Support for women entrepreneurs in the STEM areas facilitating, above all, access to funding and training.

10. Promotion of collaboration between private, public, and organised civil society actors to give added impetus to joint information and awareness-raising actions (lectures by professional women, visits to universities and companies, as well as advertising campaigns, among others).

All these proposals should be geared towards achieving a society in which gender equality is real and effective.