Gender Equality Index 2023 – a focus on the European Green Deal

The Gender Equality Index 2023 gave an overview of the state of gender equality in the EU. The EU and the Member States were given a score from 1 to 100, where 1 stands for total inequality and 100 for total equality.

The scores are based on the gaps between women and men in terms of the levels of achievement in six core domains: work, money, knowledge, time, power and health, and their sub-domains. The Index also had two additional domains: violence against women and intersecting inequalities.

The thematic focus for the 2023 Edition of the Gender Equality Index sought to contribute to building the knowledge base on the impacts of the transition towards a low-carbon society from a gender and intersectional perspective. It provided a general overview of the gendered impacts of climate change, gender differences in contributions to climate change, differences in opportunities, behaviours and attitudes to mitigate climate change at an individual level. Therefore, the scope focused on two specific priority sectors of the European Green Deal’s ‘Socially Fair Transition’, namely Energy and Transport.

For each of these two sectors, the thematic focus included an analysis of the following cross-cutting dimensions:

• EU policy efforts towards achieving low-carbon Energy and Transport sectors with the inclusion of gender equality concerns
• Environmental behaviours and attitudes in relation to the sectors by gender and population groups
• Gender differences in contributions to the sectors both as users and as a workforce
• Gender balance in decision-making across the sectors
• Promising examples of efforts to address gender inequalities

A set of indicators on the transition to a low-carbon society from a gender and intersectional perspective including in the Energy and Transport sectors.

The Gender Equality Index is an important policymaking tool to measure the progress of gender equality in the EU over time. It gives visibility to areas that need improvement and supports policymakers to design more effective gender equality measures.