Malta topped the European list of the gender employment gap, according to data flagged by the European Commission’s statistics office.

According to Eurostat data, the employment rate of women aged between 20 and 64 in 2017 stood at 66.5% – a total of 11.5 percentage points lower than that of men (78%).

The largest employment gap between men and women was registered in Malta with 24.1 percentage points, followed by Italy and Greece with 19.8 and 19.7 percentage points respectively.

Read: Malta remains worse than EU average for gender equality

At the opposite end of the scale, the gender employment gap was lowest in Lithuania with one percentage point, followed by Finland and Sweden.

Compared to data of five years before, the gender employment gap decreased in the EU by 0.7 percentage points.

Here too, Malta topped the scales, with the largest decrease in the employment gap between men and women being recorded on the island at 7.3 percentage points, followed by Luxembourg which saw a decrease by 6.5 percentage points. 

However, the gender employment gap increased in 11 EU states – mostly in Hungary, Ireland and Bulgaria.

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