EIGE launches updated guidance on how to collect gender equality data

Today, the Agency is publishing “Quality considerations for EIGE’s Gender Statistics Database (2nd edition): evolving trends in producing gender equality data and intersectional perspectives”. It now includes guidance around best practices for collecting data relating to sex, gender identity and other intersecting inequalities.

The publication is one of the many follow-ups to discussions during EIGE’s 2022 Gender Equality Forum including points made by participants representing civil society organisations working for people with disabilities and LGBTIQ people who feel their lived experiences of discrimination and (in)equality is not always being reflected accurately in official statistics.

The Chair of the Forum, Carlien Scheele (EIGE Director) committed to further filling information gaps:

We need evidence to draw attention to problems, to find solutions, and to make sure nobody is overlooked. We need to support further standardisation and systematisation of gender-sensitive data. We need to work with partners beyond our individual fields to gather data on intersecting inequalities. By doing this, we can ensure that no one is left behind in our fight for gender equality for all.

The Agency’s Gender Statistics Database is already a comprehensive knowledge centre for gender statistics. It provides much of the evidence to help the EU and Member States develop and implement gender equality policies.

But today the Agency is making that resource even better by updating the quality considerations guidance.

So, when national or EU agencies run new surveys that follow this guidance, they will generate results with more detailed data-points than previously. Which means that they can apply a new consistency, nuance and rigour in analysis of the data for policymakers. So, they can implement policies which take into consideration gender equality and intersectionality in more detail than ever before. And counter ‘anti-gender’ arguments with accurate evidence gathered by Member States and EU institutions.

The Agency’s guidance includes:

• Keeping the existing ‘sex’ categories in official registers
• Adding ‘gender identity’ to general population surveys
• Carrying out dedicated surveys for small-size groups in the population (e.g. intersex, transgender, non-binary persons)
• Adding recommendations for intersectional analysis and breakdown variables

EIGE will keep on focusing on the structural inequalities between women and men. And our updated approach aims to reflect the complex realities of gender inequalities in today’s world.

For example, data on employment now considers factors like age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, allowing policymakers to better understand the multiple layers of disadvantage faced by different groups of women and men.

We know that white women suffer gender inequalities and discrimination. But now we will be able to accurately track, measure and compare their experience not just with men, but also with women from lower income groups and minority background.

According to Maruša Gortnar, Head of EIGE’s Research and Policy Support Unit, the updated guidance for gender statistics will help to bring consistency to how EIGE and other national and EU bodies develop their surveys and collect data. Which means that the data they capture will be more detailed and useful for policy making. She says,

By updating the Quality considerations for EIGE’s Gender Statistics Database we are able to incorporate the evolving trends in producing gender equality data and intersectional perspectives. And we will be helping to ensure that data across the EU is consistent and comparable.

With more accurate, intersectional data, policymakers can get more insight than ever before about the complexities which drive gender inequalities. To help form a clearer view of how various forms of inequality overlap.

By updating the guidance, EIGE is truly fulfilling the mandate to ​​produce independent research and share best practice to promote gender equality and eliminate discrimination. So that policymakers across Europe can design measures that are inclusive, transformative and promote gender equality in all areas of life.

Updating the Quality considerations for EIGE’s Gender Statistics Database is one way EIGE is working to achieve equal opportunities so everyone can thrive, independent of their gender and background. 

But it is not the only way. 

Back in 2022 EIGE also looked at the evolving EU policy and legal approach to gender equality with specific focus on intersectionality.