05/03/2021 13:49
Women remain outnumbered at the management level in the EU in 2020, according to data released today by Eurostat, the statistical service of the EU.
In Q3 2020, more than 9.5 million people held a managerial position in the EU: 6.2 million men and 3.3 million women. Although women represent almost half of all employed persons in the EU (46%), they are under-represented amongst managers (34%).
With some bumps on the road, this share has gradually increased from just below 30% in Q2 2002 (beginning of the time series).
Among EU Member States, the largest share of women at managerial positions in Q3 2020 was recorded in Latvia (45%) and Poland (44%), followed by Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia and Sweden (all 42%).
At the opposite end of the scale, women account for only around a quarter of managers in Croatia (24%), the Netherlands (26%) and Cyprus (27%). In Greece the rate is 29%.
Meanwhile in the third quarter of 2020, the EU employment rate (for people aged 20-64) was 66.6% for women and 78.3% for men, corresponding to a gender gap of 11.7 percentage points (pp).
This gender employment gap in favour of men was seen across all levels of education.
However, the lower the education level, the wider the gap was between the employment rates for men and women.
86.9% of men and 80.5% of women with a high educational level were employed. In contrast, the employment rate for men with a low educational level was 65.9%, while for women it was 43.4%.
Correspondingly, the gender employment gap between men and women with low educational attainment level was 22.5 pp, more than triple the employment gap among highly educated men and women (which was 6.4 pp).
In addition, over three-quarters of men with a medium level of education (78.5%) were employed, compared with under two-thirds of women (65.9%). This corresponds to a gender employment gap of 12.6 pp.
Over the last decade, the gender employment gap decreased from 13.5 pp in the third quarter of 2010 to 11.7 pp in the third quarter of 2020. Similarly, the employment gap between men and women with a high education level decreased from 7.2 pp in the third quarter of 2010 to 6.4 pp in the third quarter of 2020.
In contrast, the gender employment gap for those with a low education level increased from 21.7 pp in the third quarter of 2010 to 22.5 pp in the third quarter of 2020, while for those with a medium level of education from 12.4 pp to 12.6 pp.