European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE)

European Institute for Gender Equality, Gedimino pr. 16, LT-01103 Vilnius, Lithuania

EIGE.SEC@eige.europa.eu

+370 5 215 7444

05/08/2024

The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) Gender Statistics Database collects data on the numbers of women and men in key decision-making positions across a number of different life domains in order to provide reliable statistics that can be used to monitor the current situation and trends through time.

The domains covered include politics, public administration, judiciary, business and finance, social partners and NGOs, environment, media, science and research, sports, transport, COVID-19, and EU funding. The decision-making positions covered are specific to each area of decision-making and are described in detail in the section on statistical concepts and definitions.

Data on European courts cover the presidents and members of the European Court of Justice, the General Court, and the European Court of Human Rights.

The women and men in decision-making (WMID) data are organised into life domains and then by types of organisation and the different decision-making positions within the hierarchy of each organisational type. The domains covered are:

• Politics
• Public administration
• Judiciary
• Business and finance
• Social partners and NGOs
• Environment
• Media
• Science and research
• Sports
• Transport
• COVID-19
• EU funding

Details of the organisations and positions covered are provided in the section on statistical concepts and definitions.

Not applicable.

General definitions:

A decision-making position is a position from which it is possible to take or influence a decision:

• within a domain: at organisational level. This restricts coverage to organisations having a major influence in the domain at the territorial level of interest, which is usually national but can also be international, European, regional or local.
• within an organisation: at hierarchical level. This restricts coverage to positions within the hierarchy that have a major input to decision-making within the organisation.

European courts

Organisations covered:

• Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) consists of two courts:
  • The Court of Justice: the highest court in the European Union in matters of EU laws. The Court of Justice ensures that EU legislation is interpreted and applied in the same way in each Member State. The Court has competence, among other things, to rule on applications for annulment or actions for failure to act brought by a Member State or an institution, actions against Member States for failure to fulfil obligations, references for a preliminary ruling and appeals against decisions of the General Court.
  • The General Court (formerly known as the European Court of First Instance): attached to the Court of Justice, the General Court has jurisdiction to hear and determine at first instance all direct actions brought by individuals and the Member States, with the exception of those to be assigned to a 'judicial panel' and those reserved for the Court of Justice. Since September 2016, the General Court also has jurisdiction to rule on civil service actions following the termination of the Civil Service Tribunal (established in 2005).

• Other European courts:
  • The European Court of Human Rights: an institution of the Council of Europe, which has 47 member states, and monitors compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Court of Human Rights hears cases of possible human rights violations brought by individuals, organisations and states against the countries bound by the Convention.

Positions covered:

• President of the court
• Members: judges (count of members includes the president)

Notes:

• The Advocates General in the Court of Justice and the Registrar in the General Court are not included in the count for members.

The statistical unit in WMID data is the organisational unit as defined by each specific topic (e.g. a house of parliament or a large listed company). Data are then collected on the numbers of men and women occupying decision-making positions within that unit.

Data cover all persons occupying specified positions in the organisational units covered (see statistical concepts and definitions).

Not applicable.

WMID data on European courts were first collected in the 3rd quarter of 2003, except the Civil Service Tribunal and the European Court of Human Rights for which routine data collection started in 2007. From 2017, the Civil Service Tribunal is not covered as a separate entity as it was incorporated within the General Court in September 2016.

The dataset also includes data for the European Court of Justice and the General Court collected in 1999 in the context of work undertaken by the Council of the European Union to monitor the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action.

Not applicable.

No legal acts are applicable. The Council of the European Union has committed to ongoing monitoring of the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and as part of this commitment the European Commission has been collecting data on decision-making since 2003, a task that has been taken over by EIGE since 2017.

The WMID database was managed by the European Commission until end 2016 and then transferred to EIGE.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Generally, data are disseminated within one month of the data collection (see section on reference period). Data are published on the EIGE Gender Statistics database

Not applicable.

Data are disseminated to all types of users simultaneously via the EIGE Gender Statistics database.

No regular news release.

From 2017, EIGE will publish regular bulletins on gender statistics, which may cover data on decision-making. The European Commission's Annual Report on Equality usually includes a section on this topic.

EIGE Gender Statistics database

Micro-data are not made available.

WMID data are the primary source of information for indicators to monitor the implementation of Area G of the Beijing Platform for Action.

WMID Methodological report

Not applicable.

WMID data are collected either directly from the organisations covered or from umbrella organisations providing data on behalf of member organisations. The majority of data are collected from the websites or other publications produced by the organisations concerned but some are also collected from direct contacts. There are three main risks in the data collection: ensuring the right decision-making bodies and positions are identified; ensuring that the gender of the people in these positions is correctly recorded; and ensuring that the information is up-to-date.

The data are collected by a team of experienced researchers and are subject to routine validation that includes:

• cross-checking of data relating to at least 10% of organisations covered (randomly selected) by another researcher;
• verification of data with the organisation concerned;
• comparison of data with previous periods and review in case of significant change.

WMID data need to be viewed bearing in mind the inherent diversity of institutional and organisational structures and in the scope of decision-making responsibilities for nominally similar positions. In this sense, there will always be some limitations to the extent to which data can be considered as fully comparable between countries. That being said, the data are considered to be of good quality, collected from reliable sources and with careful application of a common methodology. The data are comprehensive (cover all relevant organisations) and complete (data are available for all relevant positions in each organisation covered) in the vast majority of cases.

WMID data are the primary source of information for indicators to monitor the implementation of Area G (Power and decision-making) of the Beijing Platform for Action. The data are therefore widely used by the European Commission (DG JUST) and the European Institute for Gender Equality for analysis in this area and for reporting to the Council of the European Union.

The data are also widely used by researchers in this area.

No user satisfaction surveys are carried out.

The completeness of WMID data depends on the extent to which the organisations covered openly publish, or are willing to share, information about their key decision-making personnel. In general, there is increasing pressure on organisations of all types to be completely transparent about their organisational structure and operational practices so that completeness of the data has improved through time.

In the case of European courts, data are complete.

In principle, the WMID data accurately describe the situation for the area of decision-making concerned, though in some areas the coverage of organisations is restricted to limit the cost and burden of the data collection, and this could potentially impact on overall accuracy.

In the case of European courts, data can be considered fully accurate.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Data are released within one month of collection.

Punctuality is 100%.

Not applicable.

In general, WMID data are comparable through time in each area of decision-making. Nevertheless, it is necessary to bear in mind that the organisations covered and the decision-making structures within these may vary through time (e.g. government ministries may be reorganised following a change of government, and the constituents of the blue-chip indices used to define the sample of large listed companies are updated by the responsible stock exchange on a regular basis).

The number of judges in EU courts increased over time in response to progressive enlargement of the EU or structural changes. The changes outlined below are considered to have an impact on the comparability of data over time:

• General Court:
  • 2004: following accession of 10 countries (*) to the European Union, the number of judges increased from 15 to 25.
  • 2016 onwards: a reform was adopted to progressively increase in the number of judges to two by Member State, and to merge the Civil Service Tribunal with the General Court.

• Court of Justice:
  • 2004: following accession of 10 countries (*) to the European Union, the number of judges increased by ten.
  • 2007: following Bulgaria and Romania joining the European Union, the number of judges increased by two.
  • 2014: the number of judges increased by one as Croatia joined the EU.
  • 2019: the number of judges dropped by one with the departure of the UK from the EU.

Following a methodological revision in 2008, data for members of the Court of Justice include judges only. In previous periods (1999-2007), data for members included the judges and the advocate generals.

(*) Czechia, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia.

In general, there are few other sources of data on decision-making against which to assess the coherence of WMID data. Some national data exist for selected areas of decision-making but often the methodology is not the same (i.e. the coverage of organisations and/or positions within these varies) so that direct comparison is not possible.

In the case of European courts, there is no dataset compiling the number women and men in decision-making positions over time.

Internal coherence of the data (e.g. through time or across countries) is ensured through careful application of the WMID methodology, and routine validation of data.

Revisions to data are infrequent. Occasionally, for example, a response to a request to verify the information collected for a particular organisation is received after the data collection has closed and the results disseminated. If the information leads to a change in the data, then the update is made at the next available opportunity and at the latest within one month.

There is no fixed revision schedule. Any necessary revisions are made on an ad hoc basis.

The WMID data are a form of administrative data, being derived from the records that organisations keep regarding the personnel occupying key positions within the organisation. In all areas of decision-making, the data cover all organisations within the scope defined by the methodology. In some areas (e.g. national level politics) all relevant organisations/bodies are covered (e.g. parliaments and governments) whilst in others the methodology restricts coverage so that the data effectively represent a sample of all organisations within the broad type of organisation (e.g. data on decision-making in large companies are restricted to the nationally registered constituents of the main blue-chip index for the country).

Annually.

Direct collection of data from official websites.

See section on quality assurance.

Data collected from individual organisations are aggregated by organisation and position.

Total figures by position are based on an aggregate of data at organisation level, with the total percentages of men and women being calculated from these aggregates. The total shares of men and women are therefore weighted averages rather than an average of the shares at organisation level.

Not applicable.