Indicator A3b is a factor (i.e. causal) indicator of poverty. Employment is perceived by many Member States as a key factor for social inclusion and offers the most important means of escaping the poverty cycle. Due to gender inequalities, the interruption of employment over the life course for family care reasons can act as women-specific factors that may generate limited economic independence and, later in the life cycle, a lower level of social protection (lower pensions).
Inactivity is defined as the percentage of persons who are neither employed nor unemployed in the labour market. Employed persons are all persons who worked at least one hour for pay or profit during the reference week or were temporarily absent from such work. Unemployed persons are all persons who were not employed during the reference week and had actively sought work during the past four weeks and were ready to begin working immediately within two weeks. Inactivity does not, however, mean that persons who are in this category are inactive in general. They can, for example, be taking care of children or incapacitated adults, doing domestic work or studying.
Available flags:
| b | break in time series | c | confidential |
| d | definition differs, see metadata | e | estimated |
| f | forecast | i | see metadata |
| m | imputed | n | not significant |
| p | provisional | r | revised |
| s | Eurostat estimate | u | low reliability |
| x | dropped due to insufficient sample size | y | unreliable due to small sample size |
| z | not applicable |