Female Labour Force Projections Using Microsimulation for Six EU Countries

We project medium to long term trends in labour force participation and employment for selected low-participation EU countries (Italy, Spain, Ireland, Hungary and Greece), with Sweden as a benchmark, by means of a dynamic microsimulation model. By 2020, only Sweden will be above the Europe 2020 target of 75% employment rate, though Ireland will be close; the target will be approached by all other countries only at the end of the simulation period at 2050, with the exception of Hungary. Our forecasts, that fully take into account the uncertainty coming from the estimation of all the processes in the microsimulation, significantly depart from the official projections of the European Commission for two of the six countries under analysis.