The work-life balance gaps: (un)equal gains from progress

The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) envisages awarding a middle-value contract for a study on gender inequalities in work-life balance (WLB) gains. This study aims at monitoring the EU commitment to the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA), particularly in critical area F: Women and the Economy. The study is shaped by EU priorities and will guide the Council in making EU policies more effective in achieving gender equality objectives. The BPfA promotes women’s economic rights and independence, including access to employment, and the harmonization of work and family responsibilities. WLB is also a key EU policy priority and a cornerstone of its commitment to gender equality. For this study, WLB covers the share of unpaid care, take up of maternity, paternity and parental leave, access to care services, flexible working arrangements, participation in life-long learning and time for leisure and well-being. Despite recent progress, many Europeans still struggle to achieve a healthy work-life balance. Outcomes differ by sector, occupation, care needs, carers’ quality of life, reflecting gender norms, intersecting inequalities, welfare arrangements, workplace structures and organisational cultures. The study will provide a gender-sensitive analysis of work-life balance among carers, examining how care responsibilities, access to leaves or care services interact with working conditions, sectoral and occupational characteristics, as well as income and living conditions of carers. By comparing carers across social groups, it will identify those who benefit least from existing WLB arrangements and remain most at risk of exclusion from recent gains. This is essential for designing more targeted, inclusive, and effective policies. The study will draw on desk research, both quantitative and qualitative, and the statistical matching (also known as data fusion, data merging or synthetic matching) (see for example: European Commission (2013) Statistical matching: a model based approach for data integration, KS-RA-13-020-EN.PDF.pdf; Lamarche P, Oehler F, Rioboo I. European household’s income, consumption and wealth. Statistical Journal of the IAOS. 2020;36(4):1175-1188. doi:10.3233/SJI-190528; Balestra, C. and F. Oehler (2023), “Measuring the joint distribution of household income, consumption and wealth at the micro level”, OECD Papers on Well-being and Inequalities, No. 11, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/f9d85db6-en.) of selected variables and indicators from several surveys (i.e. producing joint information on carers working conditions based on the EIGE CARE survey or EWCS survey and LFS; and carers’ quality of life based on the EIGE CARE survey or EWCS surveys and EU-SILC). Access to microdata will be required (EIGE CARE survey microdata will be granted by EIGE, see information on the survey - Sharing care, closing gender gaps: CARE Survey 2024 | European Institute for Gender Equality). All parties interested in providing the services described above should express their interest through the Funding and Tenders portal. Following the potential expression of interest and launch of procedure, the invited candidates may submit a joint tender (i.e. consortium) with other economic operators only if they have expressed interest in the planned procedure as a consortium.