(Foto: Eurostat)

In 2021, there were 197 million households in the EU, of which 24% had children. 49% of these had only one child, 39% had two children, and 12% had three or more children. 13% of households with children consisted of single parents (6 million households). The EU’s Statistical Office, Eurostat, published these figures today to mark the Global Day of Parents, also providing data on part-time employment differences between women with and without children. In 24 EU Member States, the share of part-time employment among employed women aged 25-54 with children was larger than that for women without children, with the largest gaps recorded in central and western EU Member States: Germany (34%), Austria (32.3%), the Netherlands (27.3%). Only in Denmark, Portugal and Latvia, there are more women without children working part-time than women with children (the shares being 2.7%, 2.3% and 1.8%, respectively). The data for 2020 showed that, in households with children, 72.2% of women were employed compared with 90% of men. The Italian percentage was the lowest – only 57.3% of women with children were employed. Today, Eurostat also released the employment data: in April 2022, the euro area unemployment rate was 6.8%, stable compared with March 2022 and down from 8.2% in April 2021. As for the EU, the unemployment rate was 6.2% in April (stable compared with March) and down from 7.5% in April 2021. This means that 13,264 million men and women were unemployed in the EU in April (11,181 million in the euro area). For young people, the unemployment rate was 13.9% (down from 14.0% in March).