Q&As from Gender Equality Index 2023 Conference
The indicator on care used in the Gender Equality Index looks at people caring for and educating not only their children or grandchildren, but also the elderly or people with disabilities. In addition, EIGE's 2022 survey on gender gaps in unpaid care, individual and social activities explores informal long-term care extensively. Survey data can be consulted here.
The concept of the 'motherhood penalty' and the 'fatherhood premium' sheds light on the association between having children and the resulting economic disparities between genders.
The 'motherhood penalty' refers to the phenomenon where women, upon becoming mothers, often experience a decline in their earnings and career prospects. This is due to various factors, including the expectation and reality of women taking on a greater share of unpaid care work, such as childcare and household responsibilities. As women tend to dedicate more time to caregiving, they may have less availability for paid work and may also face workplace biases and discrimination related to motherhood. The 'motherhood penalty' contributes to increasing gender wage gaps and disparities in economic well-being.
Conversely, the 'fatherhood premium' denotes the opposite effect for men who become fathers. Men often experience an increase in their earnings and career advancement when they become fathers. This can be attributed to their increased participation in the labour market and potentially fewer caregiving responsibilities compared to mothers. Their career prospects might be positively impacted as employers may perceive them as more dedicated and responsible due to their fatherhood status.
Couple equity refers to balancing the competing demands of having both a career and family between the two members of a couple. Over the course of history, the time and energy required to have both, look different for women and men. For further reading, check out this interview with Nobel Prize winner Claudia Goldin on couple equity.
The vast majority of healthcare workers in the EU are women (76 % in 2022, source: EUROSTAT). Non-standard forms of employment, such as temporary or part-time jobs, are quite common among care workers in health services. Almost one in five have a temporary job and 4 in 10 have a part-time job . Workers in non-standard forms of employment are more exposed to job insecurity, gaps in access to social protection, higher levels of health and safety risk, and lower pay. Find more information in EIGE's report on report on Gender inequalities in care and consequences for the labour market.
EIGE works on the integration of gender equality into the policy cycle. The GREENA project is developing approaches and practical tools on how to integrate gender equality issues in impact assessment and evaluations along with environmental and climate action concerns. The GREENA toolkit will provide guidance on the need to assess gender impacts and take a gender perspective into account at all levels and in all policy areas, including environmental impacts and the policies of the EU green (and digital) transition. The GREENA toolkit also provides a gender-responsive strategic foresight tool to complement this future-looking approach that has to adopt a gender and intersectional perspective (‘sustainable future for all’). The GREENA project supports the European Green Deal commitment of ensuring that the green transition is just and inclusive and that it leaves no one behind. The project outputs, including a new toolkit on gender-responsive evaluation, will be available on EIGE’s gender mainstreaming platform in early 2024.
The strike in Iceland against the gender pay gap and gender based violence is a sharp reminder also for us in the European Union that inequalities not only exist but persist. While gender gaps across different areas of life in the EU are decreasing, the pace is slow. Legislation such as quotas - as we now have EU law requiring gender balance on corporate boards - as well as action, as we see in Iceland are the ways forward towards sustainable change.
A united front across all levels paves the way for change. The EU is taking action by moving towards a Pay Transparency Directive. It recognises that today’s gender pay gap reflects a sum of intersecting inequalities. In order to amplify the EU's work on pay transparency we must look towards... Rejecting precarious work and guaranteeing a decent minimum wage; Equally supporting young women and men to achieve their career potential; Favouring pay transparency and other measures to close the gender pay gap.
The indicators of the Gender Equality Index were selected using set criteria. Conceptually, all the variables included needed to: (a) measure a relevant aspect of gender equality; (b) reflect an equal share of assets and resources; (c) focus on individuals, rather than on institutions or countries (for example, to include ‘healthy life years’, rather than ‘health care expenditure’); (d) consist of outcome variables, which measure a current status as opposed to process or input variables (for example, by selecting ‘time spent on care activities’, rather than ‘provision of childcare services’). This is why the Gender Equality Index does not assess infrastructure. Learn more about EIGE's methodology in our methodological report here.
EIGE collects data from all European Union (EU) Member States to assess the situation of institutional mechanisms for the promotion of gender equality and gender mainstreaming. EIGE’s data and report reveals that more efforts are needed to strengthen institutional mechanisms in the EU. Too often the government’s vision for gender equality is not translated into a concrete, well costed action plan with clear and quantifiable targets against which progress can be transparently monitored. Gender mainstreaming and resourcing are the main areas for improvement. Both are critical to progress – adequate resources are needed to support, promote and deliver on gender equality goals and only an effective application of gender mainstreaming can ensure that gender issues are taken into account across all areas of policy, and ultimately lead to better outcomes and more effective policies.
For intersectional analysis variables are disaggregated additionally by sex and one more intersection at a time (e.g. age and gender; age and education, etc.). As a result, it is possible to see the levels/situations of different sub-groups separately as well as to look at gender gaps within sub-populations. If the gender gaps vary across the sub-populations, it means that gender interacts with other characteristics to create additional inequalities. Learn more about EIGE's methodology in our methodological report.
Gender Equality Index indicators are disaggregated by several variables in addition to gender, and disability status is one of the variables taken into account. Data disaggregated by disability status can be explored for most indicators on EIGE's website by selecting a Member State (or the EU) and an Index domain, and ticking the box "Break down indicators into Intersecting Inequalities here.
Intersecting inequalities is an additional domain of the Index which explores gender gaps among specific groups of women and men. In this way it is conceptually and statisticaly different from the core domains, which look at gender gaps in the overall population. Rather than being a separate domain, it is an analytical tool, applied to the whole Index to shed more light on multiple inequalities. This analysis is carried out at the variable level, while for the Index all variables are disaggregated by sex. For intersectional analysis variables are disaggregated additionally by sex and one more intersection at a time (e.g. age and gender; age and education, etc.). As a result, it is possible to see the levels/situations of different sub-groups separately as well as to look at gender gaps within sub-populations. Learn more about EIGE's methodology in our methodological report.
Currently, Eurostat collects data on intentional homicide and sexual offences (rape and sexual assault) disaggregated by family members and intimate partners (sex of the perpetrator is not registered) under the crime statistics. To address present data limitations, Eurostat is conducting the survey on EU-GBV. Data from 14 countries is already available and data from the 4 remaining countries will be published in November, 2023 on Eurostat database. FRA and EIGE are collecing data in the remaining 8 countries that opted out of the Eurostat survey in order to have EU-wide prevalence data on violence against women (VAW). Data will be available in 2024. The use of a unified methodology will ensure the availability of comparable data across all EU Member States. The results will be used to update the domain of violence of the Gender Equality Index 2024, with its thematic focus on violence against women. Due to the lack of administrative data on VAW in the EU, EIGE has been working in partnership with Eurostat and Member States in developing a measurement framework to collect data on VAW from the police and justice sector. To this end, EIGE developped 13 indicators based on common agreed definitions of the most prevalent forms of VAW (intimate partner violence (IPV), rape and femicide). The first administrative data collection was conducted in 2018-2019. A new data set will be published in 2024. Currently available data can be download from EIGE's Gender Statistics database.
The presentations of the conference will be published on-line on a conference webpage.
"EHW" is an abbreviation that stands for the Education, Health and Social Welfare.
"STEM" is an abbreviation that stands for the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
The EU has launched the #EndGenderStereotypes campaign to raise awareness about the role gender stereotypes play in society. More information is available here on the campaign website (https://end-gender-stereotypes.campaign.europa.eu/index_en). Evidence shows that the majority of fathers do not avail themselves of their right to parental leave and transfer a considerable proportion of their leave entitlement to mothers. This has led to striking differences between average take-up rates of parental leave between mothers and fathers, which for the later remains still too low in many Member States. The EU Directive on work-life balance for parents and carers (2021) includes a measure ensuring that two out of the four months of parental leave are non-transferable between parents. This Directive extends from one to two months the minimum period of parental leave which cannot be transferred from one parent to the other in order to encourage fathers to take parental leave, while maintaining the right of each parent to take at least four months of parental leave as provided for in Directive 2010/18/EU. The purpose of ensuring that at least two months of parental leave is available to each parent exclusively and that cannot be transferred to the other parent, is to encourage fathers to make use of their right to such leave. It also promotes and facilitates the reintegration of mothers in the labour market after they have taken a period of maternity and parental leave. For more information, see here. EIGE underlines that in order to increase the use of parental leave by fathers, non-transferable leave also has to be well-paid (see here).
The European Care Strategy for caregivers and care receivers (2022) includes recommedations on fair working conditions and training for care staff. To improve working conditions and attract more people – in particular men – to the care sector, Member States are recommended, among other things, to promote collective bargaining and social dialogue with a view to improving wages and working conditions. For its part, the Commission will fund projects and research to assess the social and economic value of work and working conditions in the care sector. More information here.
See the Gender Equality Index report. Three steps, from the report conclusions, could be:
1) It is important to ensure that the objectives of the Work-Life Balance Directive and the European Care Strategy are integrated into relevant policy initiatives and the framework for the EU’s long-term budget. Higher quality, broadly accessible and affordable services, particularly in areas with limited access, such as rural and remote regions, require strengthened, earmarked and increased investment and funding, explicitly connected to gender equality objectives, and consistently monitored and evaluated. Failure to address existing deficiencies in care provision and access to formal care services will prolong gender inequalities in care and other closely related domains, such as work, income or health, and further exacerbate vulnerabilities in the care sector.
2) More substantial progress in gender equality requires stepping up efforts to tackle gender segregation in education and the labour market. The Index shows that gender segregation remains a significant feature of EU education systems and the labour market, with women continuing to occupy jobs in sectors that generally have lower remuneration levels, lower career prospects, and fewer options for upskilling. Gender segregation is a key factor limiting women’s career opportunities and life-long incomes.
3) Overall, persistent disadvantages for women in education, employment, decision-making and incomes, as well as numerous challenges for men, including uptake of care and healthy lifestyles, point to the need for more and integrated data analysis. Awareness of structural causes of gender inequalities could be improved if gender statistics such as gender pay gap or gender gaps in employment routinely added intersecting inequalities’ perspective and relevant disaggregations. This would allow better monitoring and addressing of work-life balance tensions, for example stemming from uptake of childcare and LTC responsibilities.
The Index provides a state of play and trend analysis of progress of gender equality across areas relevant to EU policy framework in the EU and across countries. It is established as a benchmark for Gender Equality in the EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025.
EIGE supports a systematic integration of a gender perspective into EU and national policies by providing to EU institutions and Member States evidence-based findings on many different policy areas and good practices, technical support to mainstream gender and the practical use of gender mainstreaming tools and maintaining its EIGE’s Gender Statistics Database which is a centralised, reliable and up to date one-stop-source on key gender statistics and indicators in the EU. Most of these resources are available on EIGE’s Gender Mainstreaming Platform which is an online toolbox to help policymakers and practitioners integrate a gender equality perspective into their policy field.