LABOUR CONDITIONS : LOW WAGES MOSTLY CONCERN FEMALE AND LESS-EDUCATED EMPLOYEES.

• Position: Brief article

The proportion of low-wage earners(1) among employees amounted to 17% in 2010 in the EU27. This proportion varied significantly between member states, with the highest percentages observed in Latvia (27.8%), Lithuania (27.2%), Romania (25.6%), Poland (24.2%) and Estonia (23.8%), and the lowest in Sweden (2.5%), Finland (5.9%), France (6.1%), Belgium (6.4%) and Denmark (7.7%), according to data published by Eurostat, on 20 December 2012.

There are large differences between men and women. In the EU27 in 2010, 21.2% of female employees were low-wage earners, compared with 13.3% of male employees. In all member states, except Bulgaria, there was a larger share of female employees who were low-wage earners than male. The highest proportions for women were registered in Cyprus (31.4%), Estonia (30.1%), Lithuania (29.4%), Germany and Latvia (both 28.7%) and the UK (27.6%), and the smallest...