Gender Differences in Working Conditions in France

Abstract

In recent years, the share of French working women aged 55–59 has increased significantly to a level similar to that of men. As a result, a greater number of women today are able to choose the moment of their retirement. However, as many women work part-time or have more than one part-time job, often in the services sector, they accumulate less pension throughout their working lives. Consequently, in their retirement decisions, they will be actually less free to choose and could be found paying for the choices made earlier in their working lives with unwanted extension of their working lives. Moreover, women also experience more discrimination and inequalities in terms of employment and career opportunities and salaries than men. The expectations of men and women concerning the quality of their work and working conditions differ, and they are determined in part by gender differences in the exposure to hazardous risks, psycho-social risks within the workplace working hours and professions that are predominately mono-gender. Mixed evidence has been collected on health outcomes by gender. This chapter focuses on gender differences in the quality of working conditions experienced, in the French context, taking into account the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. We describe the working conditions of the 50+ population and their retirement behaviour in light of the ante and post-COVID-19 outbreak since this recent lockdown has also profoundly changed working conditions especially for women.