VR Balance brings together partners from Spain, Poland, and Lithuania precisely because these three countries represent different points on Europe's social and political spectrum. Spain sits in a Mediterranean context, among the EU's more gender-equal nations on paper. Poland carries a deeply Catholic, traditional social fabric. Lithuania emerges from a Soviet past that formally equalised labour participation while leaving domestic roles largely untouched. And yet, despite these differences, the numbers on unpaid care work tell a remarkably consistent story.

Spain: ahead on the index, behind at home

With a score of 74.6 out of 100 on the EU Gender Equality Index, Spain ranks 6th in the European Union. That is genuinely positive progress. But zoom in on domestic life, and the picture is more complex. More than half a million Spanish women are not in employment because they are caring for children, elderly relatives, or people with disabilities — a figure that rose by 130,000 in a single year. The equivalent number of men in the same situation is 48,700. Twelve times fewer.

For women who do manage both paid work and caregiving, the cost is substantial. Women spend 43 hours per week on combined work and unpaid care; men spend 28. That 15-hour gap accumulates to 780 hours over the course of a year — almost five full working months of unpaid, invisible labour.

Poland: high education, lower pay, and a 3% paternity leave uptake

Poland ranks 21st in the EU on the Gender Equality Index, scoring 57.7 out of 100 — nearly 11 points below the EU average. The most pronounced inequalities are in the domain of power: women are consistently underrepresented in senior leadership in medicine, academia, and government.

What makes the Polish case particularly striking is the disconnect between women's educational attainment and their economic outcomes. Women in Poland often hold higher qualifications than their male counterparts, yet earn between 20% and 30% less. In some professions, highly educated women earn 20% less than less-educated men. Only 5.7% of Polish companies are led by female CEOs.

On care: less than 3% of Polish fathers use their paternity leave entitlement. In 2021, 42% of women reported being the sole or primary carer of their children, compared with 27% of men.

Lithuania: the widest care gap in Europe

Lithuania's gender care gap is the most severe of the three project countries — and among the most extreme in the EU. In 2021, 57% of Lithuanian women reported being the sole or primary carer of their children, compared with 13% of men. That 44 percentage point gap is the largest in Europe.

Daily care statistics are equally stark: 92% of women take care of children every day, compared to 66% of men. For cooking and housework, 79% of women do it daily versus 29% of men. Women earn 16.6% less than men per month, and for lone mothers, that gap widens to 33% below lone fathers.

What the numbers mean

Statistics can feel abstract. But behind each of these figures is a person making impossible calculations: whether to take the promotion that requires longer hours, knowing the school run and the dinner and the homework will still need to happen. Whether to push back on an unfair comment in a meeting, or let it pass to avoid conflict. Whether to ask for paternity leave, knowing the social pressure not to.

VR Balance was designed with these realities in mind. The training course was built for the specific contexts of Spain, Poland, and Lithuania — because while the patterns are consistent, the cultural dynamics that sustain them are not identical, and the solutions cannot be either.