Germany in 2023 edition
The data for 2023 Index is mostly from 2021 and 2022.
The Gender Equality Index gives the EU and the Member States a score from 1 to 100. A score of 100 would mean that a country had reached full equality between women and men.
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Progress in gender equality
With 70.8 points out of 100, Germany ranks 11th in the EU on the Gender Equality Index. Its score is 0.6 points above the score for the EU as a whole.1
Since 2010, Germany’s score has increased by 8.2 points, mainly due to improvements in the domain of power (+ 29.3 points). Since 2020, Germany’s score has increased by 2.1 points. This is connected to improvements in the domains of work (+ 3.9 points), money (+ 3.6 points) and power (+ 2.8 points). However, due to other Member States making faster progress, Germany’s ranking remains the same as in 2020, in 11th place.
Best performance
Germany ranks 8th among all Member States in the domain of health, with 89.8 points. Since 2020, however, Germany’s progress in this domain has stalled (– 0.2 points). The country ranks 1st in the sub-domain of health access with 99.8 points, which represents an increase of one place since 2020. In the sub-domain of health behaviour, Germany scores 79.7 points and ranks in 8th place.
Most room for improvement
Germany has the greatest room for improvement in the domain of knowledge. The country scores 56.1 points in this domain, ranking it in 24th place. In the sub-domain of knowledge segregation, Germany’s progress has almost stalled since 2020 (+ 0.3 points), and the country continues to rank 23rd. Overall, Germany’s score in the domain of knowledge has improved by 1.4 points since 2020.
Biggest improvement
Since 2020, Germany’s biggest improvement has been in the domain of work (+ 3.9 points). Here, Germany has risen from 16th to 8th since 2020 –the country’s largest improvement in ranking in any domain, and the second biggest in the EU in this domain. This change was driven by an improvement in the sub-domain of segregation and quality of work (+ 7.1 points) since 2020. After ranking 12th in this sub-domain in 2020, Germany has now risen to 8th position.
A step backwards
Since 2020, Germany has dropped from 12th place to 14th in the domain of time, with its score remaining unchanged at 65.0 points. This step backwards in the domain of time is due to a drop in Germany’s ranking in the sub-domain of care activities, from 10th to 19th. This was the second-highest drop in ranking in this sub-domain across all Member States since 2020. In the sub-domain of social activities, Germany’s score decreased by 2.2 points.
Convergence
Upward convergence in gender equality describes increasing equality between women and men in the EU, accompanied by a decline in variations between Member States. This means that countries with lower levels of gender equality are catching up with those with the highest levels, thereby reducing disparities across the EU. Analysis of convergence patterns in the Gender Equality Index shows that disparities between Member States decreased over the period 2010–2021, and that EU countries continue their trend of upward convergence.
Looking more closely at the performance of each Member State, patterns can be identified that reflect a relative improvement or slipping back in the Gender Equality Index score of each Member State in relation to the EU average.
Germany is outperforming other Member States. Its Gender Equality Index score is above the EU average, and has grown at a faster rate. The gap between the country and the EU has widened over time.
Focus 2023: The European Green Deal
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Women in Germany embrace eco-friendly choices more often than men
In 2022, 34 % of women in Germany, compared with 22 % of men, regularly avoided animal products. Meanwhile, 55 % of women, compared with 49 % of men, reported regularly choosing environmentally friendly options for housework activities. In 2018, around 72 % of women and 68 % of men felt personally responsible for trying to reduce climate change, which were higher than the EU averages for women and men (62 % and 61 %, respectively).
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Women are underrepresented among tertiary graduates in natural sciences and technologies in Germany
In Germany, in the field of technologies, including engineering, manufacturing, architecture and transport services, only 22 % of all tertiary graduates in 2021 were women. Contrastingly, in the field of natural sciences, Germany reported an equal share of men and women graduating with tertiary degrees in 2021.
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Germany has a gender gap in the share of women and men employed in its energy and transport sectors
In 2022, women made up only 26 % of workers in Germany’s energy sector. Similarly, women accounted for less than a quarter of workers in the country’s transport sector in 2022 (24 %). These shares put Germany roughly in line with the EU average (24 % of workers in the energy sector and 22 % of employees in the transport sector being women).