Part-time employees in Cyprus dropped from 9.1 per cent in 2022 to 8 per cent in 2023, far below the EU average of 17.1 per cent, among workers aged 20 to 64, according to Eurostat.

In 2023, the share of part-time employees aged 20-64 in the EU was 17.1 per cent, a slight increase from 16.9 per cent in 2022.

Looking back over the last ten years, the share of part-time workers registered a slow but steady decreasing trend from 19.1 per cent in 2014 and 2015 to 16.9 per cent in 2022, only going up last year.

The share of part-time employment for men has remained stable at around 8 per cent throughout this period, but for women the share decreased by 3.9 percentage points from 31.8 percent in 2014 to 27.9 per cent in 2023.

Cyprus recorded a significant drop in the percentage for men and women. For men, the percentage dropped from 10.2 per cent in 2014 to 5.5 per cent in 2023, recording a decrease of 4.7 percentage points, while for women it dropped from 16.5 per cent to 10.6 per cent, with the decrease being 5.9 percentage points.

Furthermore, in 2023, 10.5 per cent of women aged 25-54 with children worked part-time, while among women of the same age without children it was around 8.5 per cent. Among men, only 3.3 per cent of those who had children worked on a part-time basis, compared to 5.1 per cent without children.

In 2023, around one-third (31.8 per cent) of employed women aged 25-54 with children in the EU were engaged in part-time work, in contrast to 20.0 per cent of employed women without children. Conversely, among men, only 5.0 per cent of those with children worked part-time compared to the ones without children (7.3 per cent). The difference in part-time work shares between women and men with children was therefore a significant 26.8 percentage points in 2023 and for men and women without children, it was less than half, with 12.7 percentage points.

In Cyprus, the difference in the ratio of parttime employment was smaller. Among women and men with children, the difference was 7.2 percentage points, while for women and men without children it was 3.4 percentage points.

The biggest gap between women and men with children was registered in Austria, a 61.2 percentage points (69.2 per cent versus 8.0 per cent) difference. Germany and the Netherlands followed with 57.2 percentage points and 54.8 percentage points differences. These three EU countries also have the highest shares of women with children working part-time.

Romania is the only EU country where the share of men with and without children working part-time is higher than the women’s shares: 2.9 per cent and 3.5 per cent for men with and without children versus 2.4 per cent and 2.7 per cent for women with and without children.

Data show that the share of employed women with children working part-time exceeded that of women without children in all EU countries except Denmark, Finland, Latvia, Greece and Romania.