EU countries' tax-and-benefit systems penalise women

How tax-and-benefit systems are structured has a major impact on women's participation in the labour market.

The most immediate reasons are two-fold: there is insufficient recognition of childcare costs, and joint-taxation can negatively affect the second earner, who is in78 percent of cases female across the EU.

The first is easily understandable, since the burden of childcare is <...