European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE)
European Institute for Gender Equality, Gedimino pr. 16, LT-01103 Vilnius, Lithuania
+370 5 215 7444
17/07/2024
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 administration cover administrators in the European institutions (European Commission, European Parliament and the Council of the European Union) and the secretary-general of European Committees (the Committee of Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee). Data also cover the president and members of the European Court of Auditors and the European Ombudsman, as well as presidents, members, and the executive heads of the agencies of the European Community.
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:
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:
European institutions and agencies
Organisations covered:
Positions covered:
Notes:
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
Data were first collected in the 3rd quarter of 2003 with the exception of European Economic and Social Committee, for which routine data collection started in 2005.
The dataset also includes data for European institutions 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.
Number of persons and percentages.
Data are collected on an annual basis, typically between June and September.
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.
Annually.
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.
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.
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:
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 administration, 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 administration, 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).
In the case of European institutions, there are changes in the administrative grades (internal reform within EU institutions) and changes in the number of members of some organisations linked to changes in EU membership over time.
For European Parliament, between 2003 and 2013, data covered advisors and principal advisors. The positions were abolished in 2014 due to internal reorganisation.
In addition, some changes were applied following a methodological revision in 2023:
For European agencies, there are changes through time in the list and number of agencies covered as agencies are created or disbanded. The list of agencies covered is updated at the beginning of each data collection from the official Commission source (https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/agencies_en). In addition, there is a break in series for the European Training Foundation (ETF). From 2018, all three representatives of the European Commission are counted as members of the highest decision-making body (the Governing Board), as the vote is shared amongst them.
Apart from these points, data are comparable over time.
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.
There is no dataset compiling the number of women and men senior administrators at European level 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.
Data are collected by a research team contracted by the European Institute for Gender Equality. There is no burden on Member States.
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.
In the case of European institutions, the following revisions were applied:
In the case of European agencies, the following revisions were applied:
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 and from contact persons in relevant organisations.
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.
None