Except that about 4% of men are "out of the labour market". You could assume that a similar fraction of women are out of the labour market for the same reasons as the men.
The other salient feature of the diagrams is that men join the labour market earlier and, although a larger fraction of women stay in education longer, they have higher unemployment rates. Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
But with the volunteering, I think you're full on target.
The Netherlands and the UK come to mind. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
What Jérôme was referring to was the inscription on sick/disabled and unable to work lists. These lists are much longer in some countries than in others. In a diary I wrote last October, I linked to OECD stats on this, with a graph. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
Numbers on Incapacity Benefit in the UK grew substantially with the arrival of New Labour in power, mostly, I suspect, as a result of the back-to-work policy that put pressure on the unemployed. The majority of people on IB are in former industrial areas where jobs are harder to come by than in S-E England. I suspect a number of long-term unemployed got themselves signed on sick so as to go on receiving benefit while not being pressured to get a job. The government is officially "working" on this now.
My feeling after spending some time looking into employment stats is that (despite ILO standards) there are so many special cases and national quirks that comparisons are hard to establish. The annoying thing is that this doesn't prevent politicians and the media from using more or less massaged numbers for propaganda purposes -- the unemployment figure being next in CW godhead to annual GDP growth... When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
It's in the nitty gritty details (such as definitions) and the context that I find labor statitistics interesting. One of the reasons I like approaches such as the pyramid is that they make it harder to hide the national quirks. With the raw census data one could imagine building a pyramid for France & for the UK, which would have even more detail then the one in my diary. You could distinguish fulltime & part-time work (maybe even include information on voluntary part-time) and include more detail on the types of other not in the labor force groups such as the disabled. If done using the right graph size, or it's corresponding table, it would reveal the large UK disability group.
I'll comment more if I have more chance.
Your diary is the kind of thing that I need to feel confident that Sarkozy's pledge to follow Blair is nothing more than idiotic. Our alleged dysfunctionally social country might even be doing better than the most economically liberal countr(ies) in Europe ... amazing!!
Vive la Commune et Vive le Socialisme !!!
Vive la Commune! When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
Other reasons individuals could be considered out of the labor market is if they are physically unable to work, but there I would not expect a big difference between men & women.
The rows are:
Here are some statistics on employment rates of men & women with children that illustrate what Migeru & I already replied.
The first table (with the bolded #3) presents the percent of labor market participation (Taux d'activite), employment and unemployment (chomage) of women (femme) and men (homme) in 2003 based on the number of children (enfant) they have. First row is no children, the 2nd to 4th rows are 1,2 and 3 children ages 1 month to 3 years. The following 1,2,3 are for children ages 3 or more and the last row in bold is the total for all couples.
The second table (#4) presents the time spent on different tasks on an average day for women & men in hours & minutes. The rows are: · Physiological time (that would be sleep and maybe exercise) · Work, studies and job training · Domestic time (housecleaning & shopping, childcare, gardening and the famous French bricolage which is what you do with items you get from the hardware store) · Free time · Travel time
