Working women make strides

8 March 2004

MADRID – Two million more women have entered the job market in the past eight years, the head of  Spain’s Women’s Institute said Monday.

Miriam Tey marked International Working Women’s Day by outlining a series of achievements made by women in recent years.

Tey said women now make up 43 percent of the working population in Spain.

She added that women’s unemployment has fallen from 29 to 15.5 percent and the number of women business leaders has risen from 19 to 30 percent.

In politics, 28.2 percent of MPs and 24.3 percent of senators – from Spain’s upper house – are women.

Tey said nearly 35 percent of the European Parliament members are women, higher than the European average.

She added that this was also than the numbers of MEPs in the  UK, Belgium or Italy.

Tey inaugurated the poster exhibition on display until next Saturday ‘Design creates equality’ at the Fine Arts Circle in Madrid.

The winning poster, by Javier Gómez López, is this year’s official image of the Working Women’s Day.

Other activities scheduled by the Women’s Institute include a tribute to writer and philosopher Maria Zambrano, and a publicity campaign in collaboration with the state-run RTVE which is to show two special programmes.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news