The European Union has implemented a range of comprehensive initiatives aimed at enhancing employment rates for both women and men. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the European Parliament adopted an action plan with the objective of achieving an employment rate of at least 75 percent by the year 2020. While this target was successfully met for men, only four EU members managed to achieve the same for women. Previous studies indicates that several primary factors significantly influence labor force participation. Education is one of them. Despite a higher proportion of women in the European Union being highly educated, there is still a notable difference in women's labor force participation between the member states.
This study investigates seven factors that may have contributed to the variation in women's labor supply within the European Union during the period from 2004 to 2021. Furthermore, the research explores the validity of the feminization U-curve hypothesis. The findings reveal two positively significant correlations with female labor force participation: education and part- time employment, as well as one negatively significant correlation: tax burden. Specifically, the results indicate that an increase in the proportion of educated women is associated with higher levels of labor force participation among women, a trend also observed with part-time employment. Conversely, as anticipated, an increased tax burden adversely impacts women's labor force participation. The hypothesis positing a U-shaped relationship between female labor force participation and the economic growth in member states was ultimately found to be unsupported within the context of this study.