Greece: Selected Issues
IMF Staff Country Reports, April 7, 2025
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- Greece: Selected Issues
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Bibliographic details
- Published: April 7, 2025
- Series: IMF Staff Country Reports
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9798229005197.002
Key findings on labor force participation (LFP)
- The paper analyzes key barriers to labor force participation in Greece using household and cross-country data and draws on the literature and simulations to discuss policy options, particularly for women for whom the LFP gap is the largest.
- Three main constraints are identified:
- (1) care responsibilities;
- (2) skill mismatches;
- (3) weaknesses in the tax-benefit system that reduce work incentives for second earners.
- Labor force survey data suggest that LFP gender gaps in Greece occur mainly during the working age.
- Estimates suggest that addressing care responsibilities alone could boost employment by 3 percent.
Policy recommendations
- Expand access to childcare facilities.
- Improve parental leave policies.
- Strengthen targeted tax-benefit incentives to reduce disincentives for second earners.
- Reforms to address skill mismatches through enhanced private sector participation in education and training.
- Complementary reforms to boost business dynamism and workplace flexibility to empower women and support economic growth.
Framing and implications
- Focus is on removing barriers that disproportionately affect women to narrow the LFP gender gap.
- Combined measures targeting care responsibilities, skills, and incentives are presented as mutually reinforcing and potentially significant for boosting economic growth and prosperity in Greece.
Greece: Selected Issues, IMF Staff Country Reports 2025, 086; April 7, 2025
Content in this bundle
- Greece: Selected Issues; IMF Country Report No. 25/86; March 11, 2025