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Paternity leave in Spain does not ensure gender equality in the home

The final dialogue of the series [Un] Equal Opportunities, organized by Ernest Lluch Foundation and Ivie, which was postponed due to the flash floods, addresses the gender gap that still exist in Spain

The final dialogue of the series [Un] Equal Opportunities, organized by Ernest Lluch Foundation and Ivie, was  initially scheduled for October 30^th of 2025, but was postponed due to the flash floods in Valencia. Milagros Paniagua, Mathematician, Economist and Advisor on inequality and poverty in the studies division of the Spanish National Tax Agency (AEAT); and Libertad González, Professor of Economics at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Research Professor at the Barcelona School of Economics, analyzed gender inequalities that still exist in Spain. Both speakers began by acknowledging the tremendous strides Spain has made in the past 50 years, but insisted that the equality of opportunities between men and women to which we should aspire has not yet been achieved.

Libertad González provided some economic-related statistics that make these inequalities more tangible. She stated that “according to data from the latest Living Conditions Survey, adult women in general earn on average 28% less than men”. In her opinion, there are three reasons for this. First, women work, on average, less hours than men (20% of women work part-time, compared to 5% of men) and their employment rate is ten percentage points lower than that of men. The third factor is hourly pay, which is 12% lower for women, despite their superior educational performance.

This gap in the labor market is even more noticeable in the domestic sector, which includes household chores and family care, duties that are regarded as unpaid labor.  González explained that the pattern of different-sex couple households is that of a man working full-time outside the home and part-time at home, while the woman does the opposite, full-time at home and part-time in paid employment. Moreover, this specialization of women in home care is observed even in families in which women may have a higher potential income, so the argument cannot be the search for joint resource efficiency. In fact it is women who, particularly after having children, tend to reduce their working hours, even if their salaries are higher than their partners. Furthermore, this pattern is not due to women’s personal preferences, since, according to various surveys carried out in Spain and other European countries, women have expressed their desire to share household chores.

The speakers recalled that, in an attempt to equalize paid and unpaid labor between men and women, reconciliation policies have come a long way in Spain. However, because it has not been possible to break the trend, the gaps continue to exist. Namely, Libertad González referred to the current paternity leave, which has been an initial success because it has managed to get a vast majority of fathers to become directly involved in childcare during the first few weeks, but it has not managed to change the specialization of households beyond the paternity leave. She added that “when paternity and maternity leaves end, the household pattern is that women reduce their paid work time to dedicate themselves to unpaid work, something men do not do”.

Inequality in old age

Milagros Paniagua wanted to emphasize the feminization of poverty as one of the main problems generated by gender inequality. She states that “when inequality has not been curbed in time, it creeps throughout working life and extends into old age”. “We have women whose working lives are shorter, with lower salaries and employment gaps, that translate into a gap in old age and greater vulnerability for women throughout their lives”. On average, women outlive men by almost six years, but do so in poorer health and with fewer resources. Paniagua compared the situation of Spain’s 9.3 million pensioners and stated that “4.6 million of them are women, and their average monthly pension is 1,000 euros, while for retired men the average is 1,500 euros”.

Libertad González agrees that adult gender inequality today has consequences on society’s overall economic well-being in the future. “The presence of women in vulnerable households is greater than that of men, for example, women make up the majority of single-parent households, while they carry significantly less authority in management roles”. This feminization of poverty affects the education of children, their career expectations, and even health, with more problems of obesity or mental health in underprivileged environments.

The two participants in the last dialogue on Equal Opportunities for Men and Women stressed the need to continue promoting public policies that close gender gaps, but also insisted on the importance of evaluating them properly to avoid the undesired effects of some of them.

The 2024 Ernest Lluch Foundation-Ivie series of dialogues, [Un] Equal Opportunities, discussed, in addition to gender inequality, the differences in opportunities in various areas, such as the labor market, health, education and housing. For 2025, the two institutions are already organizing a new series of dialogues.