More overqualified women in the EU than men – not in Bulgaria either

In 2023, 195.3 million or more than 75% of EU residents between the ages of 20 and 64 were covered by professional employment – ​​the highest level since the statistics began in 2009, the European statistics office Eurostat reported.

KEY DATA

• Employment rose for the third consecutive year after falling to 72% in 2020 due to the covid pandemic.
• Among EU member states, the highest employment rates are reported in the Netherlands (84%), Sweden (83%) and Estonia (82%).
• Employment is lowest in Italy (66%), Greece (67%) and Romania (69%).
• In Bulgaria, employment is at around 76.2%, according to Eurostat data

MORE WOMEN ARE OVERQUALIFIED

In 2023, in the EU, the level of overqualification was 22 percent – 23 percent for women and 21 percent for men.

Overqualification is reported when people with higher education are employed in positions that do not require such a high level of education, Eurostat specifies.

Among the EU countries, the levels of overqualification are highest in Spain (36%), followed by Greece (31%) and Cyprus (30%).

The lowest levels are in Luxembourg (5%), Denmark and the Czech Republic (13% each).

In 18 of the 27 EU member states, overqualification rates are higher for women than for men. The biggest differences are in Malta and Slovakia (8 percentage points each) and Italy (7 percentage points).

In 9 European countries, however, men have a higher share of the overqualified, with the difference being the largest in Lithuania (5 percentage points), Latvia (4 percentage points) and Bulgaria (3 percentage points).