On Thursday 2 October, the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) published a methodological update to its Women and Men in Decision-Making (WMID) database, which tracks the representation of women and men in decision-making bodies in politics, the economy, the media and research.
The latter was created in 2003 before being integrated into the EIGE in 2017.
Compared with the previous report published in November 2024 (https://aeur.eu/f/irg ), the 2025 edition has a reduced geographical coverage of 37 countries, with the UK no longer included.
Regarding the inclusion criteria for bodies, from now on, only bodies that have a regular and identifiable influence on decision-making are covered; therefore, general meetings that are merely consultative are excluded.
The 2025 report also aims to improve traceability. Any revision or break in the series, i.e. a change that affects the continuity of the figures over time, such as a change in the number of seats in a parliament or the addition of a new monitoring body, must now be reported and accompanied by an explanatory note.
The data collection schedule has also been adjusted. While the quarterly frequency for politics and half-yearly for large companies is maintained, the EIGE has introduced an intermediate update for certain bodies, such as parliamentary offices.
For the sake of consistency over time, missing data in the event of vacancies or a body’s temporary disbandment are now coded in a standardised way, to avoid any confusion between absence of data and absence of representatives.
The report: https://aeur.eu/f/irf (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)