Romania, the Lowest Number of Working Years among the EU Member States
Last year, Romania recorded the lowest number of years of work among EU member states, according to data published by Eurostat. With an average of only 32.2 years, we ranked below Italy (32.8 years), Croatia (34 years), Greece (34.2 years) and Bulgaria (34.5 years). Which, socio-culturally, shows that we are, simultaneously, both Latins and Balkans.
For reference, the highest working life spans were recorded in the Nordic countries such as the Netherlands (43.7 years), Sweden (43.1 years), Denmark (41.3 years), Estonia (40.8 years), Ireland (40 years) and Finland (39.9 years). The EU average was 36.9 years, systematically increasing over the last ten years (34.7 years in 2013), except for a small decline in the pandemic (35.6 years in 2020 from 35.9 years in 2019).
By gender, Romania ranks 2nd, both for men and women, among the countries with the shortest period of activity. That is 35.6 years, along with the Bulgarians and marginally above the Croats (35.4 years) and 28.5 years, respectively, slightly more than the Italians (28.3 years) but at a significant distance from the Greek (30.6 years) or Croatian (32.6 years).
We are also in second place in the gender gap, where we have an extra 7.1 years in the case of men, between 8.9 years in the case of Italy and 6.9 years for Greece and Malta, well above the 2.8 years in Croatia. In this context, perhaps we should reflect on the working hours for women in Sweden (41.9 years), the Netherlands and Estonia (both with 41.5 years), which also provide a concrete direction for action.
The only country with a negative change
Unfortunately, our country is the only one in which the change in working hours was negative between 2013 and 2023 (-0.4 years). It should be noted that five countries had notable increases in this critical indicator for the economy in this time frame: Hungary (6.2 years), Malta (5.3 years), Ireland (4.4 years), Estonia (4.3 years) and the Netherlands (4 years).
Nota bene, ten years ago, Hungary had values below the European average and in the meantime they have overcome this, the most important influence coming from the considerable advance recorded simultaneously for men and women.
A notable trend in most EU countries was that women's duration of working life increased more than men, with the only exceptions being Denmark and Romania. In Malta, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Estonia, and Cyprus, the increase was significantly higher for women than men. In Bulgaria, Slovenia, Denmark, and Sweden, the increases for men and women were roughly equal.
At the same time, it can be seen how in our country the decline in the duration of activity was determined exclusively by the decrease in activity on the female segment of the population (-1 year), while for men the result was marginally positive (+0.1 years). The fact is that all the other European states have developed, while we have stayed in place, with the contribution of the labor force as a factor of economic growth being more than questionable.
Photo source: PxHere.
