Gender Equality National Report Hungary - European-microfinance ...

Since 1990 there have been dramatic processes on the labour market; the following main
features are:
a drastic drop in the number of employees
soaring then slowly decreasing unemployment
an intensifying tendency to become inactive.
The long and historically specific period of full employment was suddenly replaced by lasting
mass unemployment, this is only one - and paradoxically not the most important - factor - in
the deterioration of the situation of the labour market. A more serious problem is that two
thirds of the people who got redundant due to ceasing jobs became inactive, similarly to
formerly unemployed people. Because of this, in the group of 15-54 year-old women the
proportion of those who live on social-welfare benefits or other people’s earnings almost
doubled (increased from 24.5% to 45.9% between 1990 and 1996). In the meantime the
employment of this age group dropped from 75.5% to 54.1% in five years.
The activity rate started to increase again only in the recent years.
Diagram No. 2:
Economic activity rate of population between the age of 15 and 74
(Central Statistics Office) 2002-2006 yearly average, 2007 Q1 average
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
male female
activity rate
Female employees are often unable to pull themselves and family out of poverty, partly due
to the differences in wages, status, industry of employment and qualifications between men
and women. Although the number of female employees is significantly increasing worldwide,
unemployment among them also increased according to the latest report of the International
Labour Office (ILO) published on Women’s day in 2007.
38