The increase in gender inequalities that has resulted from the COVID-19 crisis points to the importance of placing gender equality at the heart of the EU policy response to mitigate the socioeconomic effects of the pandemic in both the short and the long terms.
Platform work together with other new forms of employment are gaining ground in the European labour market. Although the share of women platform workers has been rising in recent years, they remain under-represented in platform work. Women are more likely to engage in platform work to gain an additional income and to have flexibility with the specific aim of combining work with family commitments.
The persistent gender imbalance among key decision-makers in large corporations and financial institutions remains a cause for concern. EU institutions recently agreed on a directive aimed at increasing the number of women on corporate boards by requiring Member States to ensure that companies listed on stock exchanges have at least 40 % of the under-represented gender among non-executive directors or 33 % among all directors.
The composition of political assemblies and executives at all territorial levels too often fails to reflect the gender diversity of the populations they represent, with women significantly under-represented in many cases. The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) regularly monitors this situation in the European Union (EU) and its 27 Member States (EU-27).
The European Institute for Gender Equality defines gender-responsive public procurement (GRPP) as ‘a gender mainstreaming tool to promote gender equality through public procurement. GRPP is procurement that promotes gender equality through the goods, services or works being purchased. EIGE, in its work on gender mainstreaming and in particular gender budgeting, seeks to promote gender equality in how public resources are collected and spent.
Violence against women and girls and gender-based violence is a cause and effect of gender inequality and the power imbalance between women and men, and one of the most widespread violations of human rights. This deeply entrenched phenomenon requires a coordinated and targeted prevention and policy response based on reliable and comparable data and evidence. Over the past years, EU candidate countries and potential candidates from the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo1, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia) and Türkiye have strengthened their data collection on violence against women (VAW), contributing to a better understanding of patterns and trends and providing much-needed data for evidence-based policymaking.
The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) collected data from all European Union (EU) Member States to assess the situation of institutional mechanisms for the promotion of gender equality and gender mainstreaming in December 2021.
Femicide is an extreme form of gender-based violence, defined broadly as ‘the killing of a woman or girl because of her gender’. EU and international institutions use various terms to refer to femicide, including ‘gender-related killing of women’ and ‘feminicide’. In 2020, 47 000 women and girls worldwide were killed by their intimate partners or other family members. In 2019, while women accounted for only 19 % of total homicide victims, they comprised:
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is the most common form of violence against women and the most extreme form of gender discrimination. It poses a threat to the fundamental rights to dignity, liberty, security, health and, eventually, the lives of women. EU Member States have not established a common definition for IPV, which means it is understood and measured differently across jurisdictions.
Rape is an unlawful sexual act and a harmful form of sexual violence that disproportionately affects women and girls. Rape occurs in the absence of consent, the voluntary agreement between participants to engage in sexual activity. EIGE recognises the need for systematic data collection on the prevalence and frequency of rape in the EU, the effects of sexual violence on victims and the actions of Member States to prosecute and hold the perpetrators accountable.
Femicide, commonly understood as the killing of a woman or girl because of her gender, is the most extreme form of gender-based violence, deeply rooted in the inequalities between men and women in society. It is estimated that, globally, around 47 000 women and girls were killed by their intimate partners or other family members in 2020, and around 2 600 were killed in Europe (UNODC, 2021a).
This technical report presents the methodological aspects of the online survey on gender equality and socioeconomic consequences of COVID-19 carried out by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE). The survey was implemented in all 27 EU Member States from June–July 2021 and its results are presented in the Gender Equality Index 2022 – The COVID-19 pandemic and care. This technical report gives detailed information on the survey process, from its design to data processing, cleaning and weighting.
