Female activity and education levels in selected European Union countries

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present the evolution of female employment rates between 2013 and 2017 in selected Central and Eastern European countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Hungary), and to analyze the interregional relationships between female activity and education levels. Empirical data at a national level was analyzed with the metrics of descriptive statistics, demographic metrics and indices of the condition of the labor market. An analysis of spatial autocorrelation was carried out to determine the strength of spatial relationships between different regions in terms of female activity and education levels. Also, the dependence between synthetic indicators of female activity and education levels was empirically analyzed based on spatial regression. Research suggests that female employment rates grew on average by 6.5 percentage points in the countries surveyed. The economic activity of women is impacted by demographic factors, including the level of education. The spatial regression analysis gives grounds for concluding that (as at 2017) a 1% increase in the synthetic indicator value of the female education level results in a nearly 0.59% increase in the synthetic indicator of the level of activity in the regions considered (under the assumption that other factors remain constant).