More women in decision-making but still a long way to go

The EU score for the power domain (51.9) remains the lowest of all domains. However, it has steadily increased: by 3.4 points since 2015 and by 13 points since 2005.

Figure 23: Scores for the domain of power and its sub-domains, EU, 2005-2017

Figure 24: Score for the domain of power, EU Member States, 2005, 2015 and 2017

The majority of Member States experienced an increase in the score of the domain of power after 2015. The average increase for them is higher than the EU total average (4.4 points) and is driven by progress in the social (7.1 points) and economic (5.5 points) sub-domains. Member States experiencing regression saw a similar average rate decrease in score (around 4 points) (see Figure 25). Individually, Sweden, France and Finland have the greatest gender balance in the power domain. Hungary, Greece, Czechia and Slovakia have the least gender balance, with the largest over-representation of men in political, economic and social decision-making.

Figure 25: Average increase/decrease 2015-2017

The most substantial improvement at EU level was made in economic decision-making, where the score rose by 4.1 points between 2015 and 2017 and by 18.6 points overall from 2005. Greater gender balance on the boards of the largest publicly quoted companies lay behind this trend. Political decision-making, which had a higher initial score than economic decision-making (55 points compared to 43.6), edged further forward: 2.3 points between 2015 and 2017 and 11.2 points from 2005. In general, the slowest progress was observed in research, media and sports decision-making. The score of 58.2 points was a slight improvement on data collected (for the first time) in 2005. This sub-domain’s score rose by 4.6 points between then and 2017, with most progress (3.2 points) made after 2015.