Women are less likely than men to work in senior or managerial positions, suggesting that a "glass ceiling" does exist. Women are less likely to be involved in decision making in the workplace than their male counterparts. Women have less control over their time schedule than men, and two million women workers across the European Union have been subjected to sexual harassment over the last 12 months.

These and other findings are contained in Gender and Working Conditions in the European Union, a summary based on an analysis of the findings of the Second European Survey on Working Conditions. It was conducted in 1996 by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions which is based in Loughlinstown, Co Dublin.

The survey found that only 17 per cent of women advance to senior or managerial positions in organisations, compared to one third of men who hold supervisory positions.

Women are less likely than men to be involved in decision making and participation in the workplace - unless their boss is a woman. Female managers tend to facilitate a work culture in which workers enjoy better communication, participation, team work and less immediate managerial control.

Women tend to have less control over their time schedule than men, although male workers tend to be more exposed to high time constraints than female workers.

At least two million women - or 3 per cent of women at work in the EU - had been subjected to workplace sexual harassment in the previous year.

Meanwhile, 4 per cent of women experienced sexual discrimination in the workplace in the same period. Women in temporary work are more at risk of suffering from sexual harassment than women in permanent jobs.

Female workers tend to have more contact with people outside an organisation's workforce - patients, pupils and customers - than male workers. Women's jobs tend to be more characterised by caring, nurturing and support, while men's jobs are more typically technical or managerial. But 31 per cent of women use computers in the workplace, compared to 26 per cent of men.

Some 26 per cent of women work for less than 30 hours a week, compared to only 5 per cent of men. Female working hours shorten as family size increases. The survey found that: "Across the EU it seems difficult for employed women to combine full-time work with raising a family."

Forty per cent of women are more likely to work in jobs with high demands and low control over their work than men (36 per cent), while women are less likely (22 per cent) than men (29 per cent) to be in jobs where demands are high but control is also high.

On a positive note for women's health and safety, women are less likely then men to be exposed to noise, heat and chemicals in the workplace. For instance, 13 per cent of women are exposed to excessive workplace noise, compared to 23 per cent of men. Some 41 per cent of women work to tight deadlines, somewhat better than the 48 per cent figure for men.

The survey found that although there has been a dramatic improvement in the number of women in the workplace over the last 10 or 20 years, "inequality of wages and lack of career opportunities for women are still big problems".

Two occupations - clerks and service/sales workers - account for half of the female-employed population in Germany, France, Belgium, and Austria.

In countries like Ireland, Portugal and Denmark "considerably lower rates are found, while women are more often employed in elementary occupations or as crafts/trades workers".

Women are less likely to be self-employed (14 per cent) than men (21 per cent). But self-employment is more prevalent in southern Europe.

For instance, in Greece about half of the working population of both men and women is self-employed.

Women are slightly more likely (18 per cent) than men (14 per cent) to be engaged in "precarious work", that is, fixed-term or temporary agency contracts.

A quarter of women in paid employment work less than 30 hours a week.

Nine per cent of women work 30 to 34 hours a week, 56 per cent work a 35 to 40 hour week, while 11 per cent work longer than 40 hours a week.

The survey found that long working hours for women with children tends to lead to "higher stress and lower job satisfaction, while short working hours are associated with better job satisfaction and lower stress".