Social Security statistics confirm the lack of family co-responsibility and how the burden of care continues to fall largely on women. 85% of the leaves of absence to care for a child or other family member requested in the first quarter of this year corresponded to women. Social Security processed 11,741 leaves of absence in that period, and only 1,762 of the requests were made by men.
And although in the first three months of 2024 fewer leaves of absence have been requested than in the same period of 2023, the proportion of women and men who request them remains unchanged.
This feminization of care leave is, furthermore, generalized throughout Spain. Ceuta (71%) and the Canary Islands (76%) are the autonomies with the lowest percentage of leaves of absence by women. And Murcia (90%), La Rioja (88%) and Castilla y Léon (88%), the ones with the greatest feminization.
But this is not the only labor indicator that reflects the limited progress in co-responsibility in care and that it is women who continue to give up their jobs and professional careers when the need arises to care for minors, the elderly or other dependent people in the family environment. According to data provided by the Active Population Survey, of the 383,500 employees who worked part-time in 2022 to have more time to care for children, the sick, the elderly or people with disabilities, 92.5% were women.
The analysis carried out by the INE on this data makes it clear that a high percentage of those who worked part-time in 2022 did so involuntarily, due to not being able to find a full-time job, and this reality was somewhat more common among men ( 55%) than among women (49.4%).
But among those who chose it, the alleged reason for doing so differs significantly depending on gender: they mainly cite caring for children, the sick or the elderly, and they say they work part-time to support their training, to follow teaching courses.
Statistics also continue to show the different impact that having children has on the professional careers of men and women. The employment rate of women between 25 and 49 years old with children was 70.4% in 2022, compared to 75.6% of their contemporaries without children, while the opposite is true for men: having children seems to be a incentive to work and the employment rate among those who have children is around 90%, 11.5 percentage points higher than those who do not have descendants.
