Are Male Workers Poorer than Female Workers in the EU? A Gender-Sensitive Empirical Analysis of In-Work Poverty Measurement and Risk Factors

This paper investigates the risk factors associated with EU in-work poverty, with a focus on gender measurement biases and a critical assessment of the EUROSTAT indicator’s capacity to reflect female economic vulnerability. Using EU-SILC panel data from 2005 to 2021 across 23 countries, the study identifies inconsistencies in women’s in-work poverty outcomes stemming from household-level income pooling of incomes and the constraints of equivalence scales. These methodological challenges contribute to the so-called gender paradox, whereby women appear statistically less affected by in-work poverty despite enduring persistent disadvantages in labour market participation, job quality, and living conditions. Employing a fixed effects methodology, the research analyses the differential impact of various factors on in-work poverty between men and women. The findings reveal that financial dependence and household composition significantly distort poverty estimates for women. To address these issues, the study calls for a reconsideration of aggregation methods and equivalence scales, encouraging approaches that better reflect intra-household dynamics and support more gender-sensitive policy responses. JEL Clas.: C43, D63, I32, J71.