2025-05-20-IMF-释放劳动力潜力_赋予女性权力以促进经济增长和希腊繁荣（英）_21页_1mb

Unlocking the Work Force Potential: Empowering Women to Boost Economic Growth and Greek Prosperity

This IMF Selected Issues Paper analyzes the constraints on female labor force participation (LFP) in Greece and proposes reforms to enhance its contribution to growth. The Greek economy has rebounded post-pandemic, but demographic challenges necessitate boosting LFP, particularly for women, to sustain higher prosperity.

Key Findings

1. Constraints to Female LFP:

   • Care responsibilities: Households with young children face severe employment penalties, especially for women.
   • Skill mismatches: High unemployment among college graduates (8.5%) underscores education-demand misalignment.
   • Tax-benefit system: Low-income joint earners face disincentives due to high marginal tax rates.

2. Economic Impact:

   • Addressing care responsibilities alone could boost employment by ~3%, requiring complementary reforms.

Policy Recommendations

1. Care Infrastructure:
   • Expand access to affordable childcare (reduce enrollment gaps from ~70% of under-3s).
   • Formalize community-based care programs.
2. Parental Leave:
   • Maintain/simplify current 56 weeks of maternity leave but improve uptake for fathers and self-employed.
   • Align paternity leave with Nordic models to promote gender equality.
3. Work Incentives:
   • Strengthen tax-benefit systems (e.g., nonrefundable tax credits) to mitigate high tax wedges for low-income earners.
   • Reform unemployment benefits to better incentivize job search.
4. Skill Development:
   • Align education with labor market needs (e.g., vocational training in AI, healthcare).
   • Enhance PISA scores and address field-of-study mismatches.
5. Targeted Support:
   • Implement conditional cash transfers (CCTs) to encourage childcare use and employment.
   • Leverage the Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI) program for LFP coordination.
6. Complementary Reforms:
   • Increase business dynamism (reduce entry barriers in services) and labor market flexibility.
   • Address cultural norms limiting women’s employment through policies and representation in institutions.

Implementation

• Phased reforms leveraging EU funds (~16% of 2023 GDP) to support investments and integrate human capital reforms.
• Monitoring mechanisms to ensure effectiveness and coordination across education, labor, and social programs.