Gender equality index

In several EU Member States, a century has now passed since women won the right to vote in national elections, were elected to national parliaments or first held a ministerial position. Nevertheless, one hundred years on, EU-wide data show that women are still under-represented in political decision-making at local, national and EU levels. The Gender Equality Index, developed by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) to measure gender gaps over time, shows that although ‘power’ is the area where most progress has been made in the past 10 years, it is also the area where the gender gap remains widest. During the pandemic, progress in the area of power was the main driving force behind the advance in gender equality in the EU. At same time, the areas of work and knowledge – which also play a key role for attaining gender equality – experienced stagnation or regress in most EU countries. With a score of 100 equalling gender balance, Sweden and Finland are currently the only EU countries to score over 90 on the ‘political power’ indicator, which is based on the share of women ministers, members of parliament or members of regional assemblies. Over the past decade, some Member States, such as France, Austria, Belgium and Spain, have scored further progress from an already high starting point. Others, such as Italy, Portugal and Lithuania, have made significant progress even though their starting point was lower. Most of those at the bottom of the ranking (under 50 points) have not made major strides (see Figure 1).