Gender equality is improving very slowly in Europe. This is shown by the new index from the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), published on Tuesday 15 October.
According to this fourth edition, in 2017, the EU achieved an average score of 67.4% in the various areas of work, money, knowledge, time, power and health, as well as violence against women and transversal inequalities. This represents an improvement of one percentage point over 2015, the date of the last index, or an improvement of just 0.6 percentage points per year.
Sweden remains at the top of the EU scoreboard with 83.6 points, followed by Denmark with 77.5 points. Greece and Hungary have the most ground to make up, with a score of less than 52. Portugal recorded the largest improvement, with an increase of 3.9 points, closely followed by Estonia with 3.1 points. The lowest scoring domain is power, which considers equality in decision-making. Yet this is the area where the greatest progress has been made.
This year's edition focuses on the balance between professional and private life, and the impact of this balance on gender equality. It shows that, in the EU, 28% of women and 20% of men are not eligible for parental leave and that more women care for an elderly and/or disabled person several days a week (21% of women, compared to 11% of men).
At the press conference, the Director of the EIGE, Virginija Langbakk, regretted the lack of available data on violence against women. For her part, Evelyn Regner (S&D, Austria) lamented the slow progress and called for binding EU measures. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)