How women's participation in the Romanian economy has evolved over the last 20 years

According to the international definition (BIM), the employed population includes all persons who carry out an economic or social activity for the purpose of obtaining income in the form of wages, payment in kind, or other benefits: employees, employers, self-employed persons, and family workers. In the 2021 population and housing census, the total employed population in Romania was 7,689,000, down by 819,000 from the 2011 census.

Between the last three population censuses (2002, 2011, 2021), the gender structure of the employed population underwent significant changes, with the share of women in the total remaining relatively constant, showing a slight upward trend from 44% to 46%.

The participation of women in leadership structures (members of the legislative and executive branches, senior administrators, managers, and senior officials) has increased dramatically in both the public and private sectors: 34% in 2002, 40% in 2011, and 48% in 2021. Currently, the share of women in leadership structures exceeds that of the total employed population. Moreover, the proportion of people in management positions is higher among employed women than among men (3.14% of employed women are in management structures, while among men the percentage of those in management positions is 2.89%).

Women also constitute the majority, and their share is growing, in the category of specialists in various fields of activity: while in 2002 women accounted for 51% of specialists, in 2021 the percentage reached 60%.

However, the employment rate for women in the labor market (59.1% of the total employed population) is much lower than that for men (77.7%) and than the average employment rate for women in the EU (69.3% in 2022). Romania has one of the largest gender gaps in terms of employment rates.