Without gains in power, gender equality would barely be progressing

Despite being the lowest scoring, the domain of power continues to drive the increase in the Gender Equality Index, in both the short term and the long term. Between 2010 and 2018, the domain of power contributed around two thirds of the overall increase in the Index (65 %); the 2017–2018 contribution was even more marked, reaching 81 %(Table 2).

The domain of power is also the major driving factor behind gender equality progress in almost all of the Member States in the long term, particularly in Belgium, Ireland, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom.

In the short term, the domain of power has contributed more than 80 % of overall gender equality progress in Czechia, Croatia, Spain, Latvia, Austria and the Netherlands, and 70–80 % in Germany, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Finland and the United Kingdom. In Slovenia, by contrast, the decrease in the Gender Equality Index by – 0.6 points during 2017–2018 was determined by a decrease in the domain of power (– 79 %).

Figure 3. Annual change, long term (2010–2018) and short term (2017–2018), by domain, EU

In 2017–2018, progress in the domain of work contributed to an overall increase in the EU’s Gender Equality Index score by 8 %, the domain of knowledge by 6 % and the domain of money by 5 % (Table 2). However, these lower contributions to gender equality progress at EU level hide important country differences.

  • Closing gender gaps in the domain of work made a relatively high contribution to gender equality progress in Malta (+ 40 %), Belgium (+ 34 %) and France (+ 18 %) between 2017 and 2018.
  • Changes in the domain of money had a substantial positive impact on gender equality in Lithuania (+ 22 %), Romania (+ 19 %) and France (+ 15 %) but reduced the Gender Equality Index scores for Germany, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom (by around – 14 % to – 16 %).
  • The domain of knowledge contributed positively to progress in Bulgaria (+ 54 %), Sweden (+ 33 %) and Malta (+ 33 %) and made a negative contribution in Denmark (– 40 %), Czechia (– 16 %) and Greece (– 13 %).
  • Finally, the domain of time reduced the EU’s Gender Equality Index scores between 2010 and 2018 by 13 %, owing to diminishing gender equality in several Member States (the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and Denmark).

Table 1. Changes in the Gender Equality Index and domain scores by Member State, long term (2010–2018) and short term (2017–2018), in points

Table 2. Percentage contributions of the different domains to Gender Equality Index progress in the short term (2017–2018) and in the long term (2010–2018)