Wednesday, 5 November 2025
A new pan-European survey has found that while job quality across Europe has generally improved over the past decade, sharp inequalities remain between men and women and among workers in different regions.
The European Working Conditions Survey 2024, conducted by Eurofound, draws on interviews with more than 36,000 workers in 35 countries and assesses seven dimensions of job quality. The results show progress in areas such as working time, skills development, and physical working environments, but highlight widening gender disparities in social relations at work, job intensity, and exposure to risks.
One of the clearest improvements has been a decline in excessively long working hours. The proportion of employees working more than 48 hours per week has fallen from 19 percent in 2005 to 11 percent in 2024. This has narrowed gender gaps in working time quality, with men now scoring at similar levels to women for the first time.
Workers also reported greater opportunities to apply and expand their skills, with the “skills and discretion” index showing the strongest gains. Men in particular have seen improvements in their physical work environment.
However, the survey found that women’s working conditions are worsening in other respects. The social environment at work has deteriorated for women since 2010, largely due to higher exposure to verbal abuse and other negative behaviours. Women are also more likely to work in high-intensity sectors such as healthcare and education, where frequent interruptions and emotional strain are common.
Other challenges include the rise of sedentary work, with 40 percent of Europeans reporting prolonged sitting during working hours. This figure is higher among women (42 percent) than men (39 percent).
Job security and financial predictability remain uneven across Europe. Although overall fear of job loss has declined, men continue to report better career prospects than women. Meanwhile, 15 percent of workers across Europe are unable to predict their income over the next three months, with uncertainty particularly acute in Romania and Greece, compared to more stable conditions in Austria and Germany.
Eurofound’s findings underline that while average job quality has improved, these gains are unevenly distributed. The agency concluded that policymakers must look beyond broad trends to address the vulnerabilities and inequalities that continue to shape working lives across Europe.
