The unemployment rate of French women : a misleading indicator

While the French labor market has long been characterized by high unemployment among women, the male and female unemployment rates have gradually converged since the 1990s. In the third quarter of 2012, the female unemployment rate became lower than the male rate for the first time (9.7% compared to 10.0%). The Covid-19 crisis did not affect this convergence dynamic, as it did not lead to a massive withdrawal of French women from the labor market. However, women, who are still more affected by the unemployment halo, underemployment and part-time work, remain over-represented in this “shadow unemployment”. Thus, does the unemployment rate indicator make it possible to take into account and understand this persistence of gender inequalities in unemployment and in the labor market?

OVERVIEW OF FRENCH FEMALE UNEMPLOYMENT 

The unemployment rate of French women has specific characteristics and is unevenly distributed between age groups, socio-professional categories and nationalities. In France, the women most affected by unemployment are often young, working class and of foreign nationality (outside the EU).

Unemployment particularly affects the youngest women. Since 1975, unemployment has especially affected people under 25 years of age. The characteristic of youth unemployment is that it is "highly feminized". Indeed, unemployment among 15-24 year olds was 8.2% for girls in 1975 (compared to 5.4% for boys) and 22.3% in 1985 for girls (compared to 17.7% for boys). However, from the 2010s onwards, the trend has been reversed and male youth unemployment has begun to exceed female unemployment: in 2015, unemployment among boys in the 15-24 age group was higher than among girls (25.1% compared with 22.7% for girls).

Female unemployment mainly affects blue-collar workers and intermediate occupations. In 2019, female blue-collar workers had the highest unemployment rate among the different socio-professional categories (15.2%, which is about 5 times the unemployment rate of female white-collar workers, which was 3.3%). Female blue-collar workers were followed by women with intermediate occupations, whose unemployment rate was 9% (about 3 times the unemployment rate of female white-collar workers).

Finally, female unemployment is very high among foreigners coming from countries outside the European Union. The unemployment rate for women with a nationality from a country outside the EU is 25%. This rate is more than two times higher than that of French women (9%) and foreign women with an EU nationality (10.9%). The same trends can be observed for men.

The populations hardest hit by unemployment are women in the 15-29 age group from foreign countries outside the EU: for them, the unemployment rate was 33.1% in 2014 (compared with 27.4% for men with the same characteristics).

TODAY, THE FEMALE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IS ALMOST EQUAL TO THAT OF MEN 

In the third quarter of 2020, the unemployment rate (in the ILO sense) for men was slightly higher than for women: 9.1% for men (1,379,000 people) and 9% for women (1,288,000 people).

The Covid-19 crisis did not lead to a massive withdrawal of French women from the labor market and did not call into question the downward trend in female unemployment since the 2000s. According to the Banque de France, the female employment rate fell by 0.3% between the 4th quarter of 2019 and the 1st quarter of 2020. In addition, according to the Banque de France, the evolution of the employment and unemployment rates of men and women showed "little differences". There are several reasons why, unlike the US, South Korea and Japan, French women have not been highly affected by the Covid-19 crisis in the labor market. Firstly, supportive public policies were put in place early on during the lockdown, such as partial unemployment for childcare. Secondly, the return of children to school and the reopening of various forms of childcare facilities after the first lockdown facilitated remote working for mothers.

Thus, women are no longer over-represented in the unemployment rate figures, as it was the case in the 1970s. However, to understand the persistence of gender inequalities in the labor market, it is necessary to go beyond the unemployment rate alone and take into account the unemployment halo, underemployment and part-time work, which still affect women more than men.

BEYOND THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE : FRENCH WOMEN ARE MORE AFFECTED THAN MEN BY UNDEREMPLOYMENT, PART-TIME WORK AND UNEMPLOYMENT HALO

Indicators such as the unemployment halo, underemployment and part-time work allow us to better take into account the margins or “shadows” of unemployment, where women continue to be over-represented. Indeed, as one moves away from the core of unemployment to the blind spots of official unemployment statistics (e.g. individuals discouraged from seeking work or not available for work), one finds more women. The apparent convergence of male and female unemployment rates observed since the 1990s thus masks the persistence of the over-representation of women at the margins of unemployment and inactivity

Women are more affected by the unemployment halo than men. Although the unemployment rate for women is now slightly lower than that of men, taking into account the halo of unemployment leads to a different diagnosis: in 2020, 1,060,000 women were in this halo, compared to 866,000 men (France excluding Mayotte, people aged 15 or over). This over-representation of women in the unemployment halo is not recent. Indeed, in 1990 and 2000, the gap between men and women in the unemployment halo was even more significant (877,000 women compared to 373,000 men in 1990, and 836,000 women compared to 402,000 men in 2000). 

In addition to the unemployment halo, women are twice as affected by underemployment as men. In 2019, 7.8% of working women were underemployed, compared with 3.1% of men (France excluding Mayotte, employed persons aged 15 years and over). In 1990, 2000 and 2015, French women were almost three times more affected by underemployment than men (638,000 women underemployed compared to 264,000 men in 1990; 1,036,000 women compared to 378,000 men in 2000; and 1,207,000 women compared to 491,000 men in 2015).

Finally, more than one quarter of working women work part-time. In 2019, 28.4% of working women worked part-time (compared to 8.3% of men) (France excluding Mayotte). However, the gender gap in the probability of working part-time has been narrowing since the early 1980s. Indeed, in the early 1980s, the probability of working part-time was almost 10 times higher for a woman than for a man, compared to 6 times higher in 2013. 

Far from being 'chosen' by women (to free up time for domestic tasks and childcare), part-time work is often imposed by the employer at the time of hiring. Indeed, in a 2015 INSEE employment survey, 41.7% of women stated that the main reason for working part-time was the impossibility of "working more in (their) current job". The last three decades have seen an increase in the creation of part-time jobs in the private sector (mainly catering, commerce, hotels and services to businesses and individuals). Low-skilled or unskilled women working in these sectors accept part-time jobs (which are sometimes transformed into full-time jobs), often for fear of being unemployed.

Thus, the unemployment rate alone does not suffice to understand the persistence of gender inequalities in the labor market. Although the gap between the unemployment rates for women and men has indeed decreased considerably since the mid-1970s, French women continue to be more affected by "shadow unemployment". This misleading reality induced by the sole consideration of the unemployment rate should invite us to consider other indicators (such as the unemployment halo, underemployment and part-time work) which would allow us to better understand and grasp the complexity of French women's unemployment.