Figure 4.25: Women at work in Europe, 2009. A majority of women in Europe work outside the home, and their numbers increased from 52 percent in 1998 to 58.6 percent in 2009. The exceptions are in Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, and the Republic of Macedonia, where less than 50 percent of women work outside the home. Included for comparison is Turkey, where slightly less than 25 percent of women work outside the home. These statistics, however, may not include some of the many women in Europe who work in the informal economy. In countries where the rate of women in the paid labor market is increasing, there is usually a concurrent decline in birth rates.
[Source consulted: Europe in Figures: Eurostat Yearbook 2011, Figure 5.3, Eurostat, 2011, at http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS- D- 1- D- 1- 1-