The Netherlands has the European Union's highest rate of women working part-time, the Dutch statistics agency CBS said on Monday.

While it had the second-highest rate (71.5 percent) of working women in the 27-member union, "three-quarters of Dutch women work part-time" -- the largest number by far, it said in a statement.

Germany, where 45 percent of women work part-time, is second.

The CBS said that while Dutch women had a higher-than average level of education, the salary-gap between men and women in the country was higher than the EU average.

Dutch women earned 81 percent on average of the gross salary of men, compared to an EU average of 83 percent.