European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE)
European Institute for Gender Equality, Gedimino pr. 16, LT-01103 Vilnius, Lithuania
+370 5 215 7444
02/10/2025
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 cover the presidents and members of the permanent or standing committees of the national parliaments in 37 countries and the European Parliament.
The women and men in decision-making (WMID) data are organised into nine 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.
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General definitions:
A decision-making position is a position from which it is possible to take or influence a decision:
Parliamentary committees
Organisations covered:
Only permanent and standing committees are included, which means their functions and composition have to be clearly defined in the rules of procedure of parliaments. In the case of committees of the national parliaments, there can be different types of committees based on the parliamentary system (unicameral or bicameral). In parliaments with two chambers or houses (bicameral), there may be committees at the lower and/or upper house as well as joint committees, depending on what chamber -or house- they serve.
Positions covered:
Mapping table:
Data are available broken down by BEIS typology (Basic, Economy, Infrastructure and Socio-cultural functions within the government), categorising the committees by main policy area.
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).
The WMID data cover the 27 EU Member States, six EU candidate countries (including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Serbia and Türkiye), one potential candidate (Kosovo(*)) and the remaining three EEA countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway). Data covered the United Kingdom up to 2024.
(*) This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence.
WMID data on committees of national parliaments were first collected in August-October 2017 for the 27 EU Member States and the United Kingdom. The geographic coverage has been expanded to align with other WMID topics; data were collected in August 2018 for the countries listed below only:
Data on committees of the European Parliament were first collected in 2024.
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Number of persons and percentages.
Data are collected on an annual basis.
For committees of national parliaments, data were collected in August/September up to 2024 and in June/July from 2025.
For committees of the European Parliament, data were collected in November in 2024 and June/July from 2025.
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.
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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
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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/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 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 committees of national parliaments, 2017 data were not available for the president of a committee in the lower house of Austria, members of six committees (one committee in the lower house of Netherlands and in the UK, one committee in the lower house and four joint committees) as these were not appointed at the time of data collection. Moreover, data for the six EU candidate countries and one potential candidate (i.e., IPA beneficiaries) were not collected in 2024 and 2025.
In the case of committees of the European Parliament, data are complete.
Apart from this, data can be considered fully accurate.
Not applicable.
Not applicable.
Data are released within one month of collection.
Punctuality is 100%.
WMID data are considered comparable between countries but it is necessary to bear in mind the different institutional settings that exist and the fact that decision-making structures vary between organisations within countries as well as between countries. There are, therefore, inherent differences between countries in the way that decision-making is organised but the WMID methodology aims to allow for such variation so that the organisations and positions covered in each country are as comparable as possible.
In the case of committees of national parliaments, the main difference between countries is that some have a unicameral system with just one house of parliament whilst others have a bicameral system with two houses. Data are organised by type of house to take this difference into account. Also, the number of committees covered varies across countries.
Apart from these points, data can be considered fully comparable between countries.
In general, WMID data are comparable through time in each area of decision-making and the data accurately reflect the situation at the time according to the methodology. 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).
There may be changes in the number of committees covered i.e., following amendments to the rules of procedure or legislative elections. In addition, structural changes and changes in the size of a parliament following legal reforms also have an impact in the size of the committees. The list of committees covered is updated before each data collection.
Apart from this point, 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 other dataset compiling the number of women and men in committees of national parliaments and the European Parliament 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 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.
Following a data quality review, revisions were applied in 2023 to:
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 covered by the database 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 contact persons
See section on quality assurance.
Data collected from individual organisations are aggregated to the national level by position.
EU-27 figures are based on an aggregate of data at national level, with the percentages of men and women calculated from these aggregates. The shares of men and women observed at the EU level are therefore weighted averages rather than an average of the shares at country level.
Figures for IPA beneficiaries are based on an aggregate of data at national level for the six candidate countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, and Türkiye) and one potential candidate (Kosovo).
Different aggregates can also be computed using the pre-defined table. For example, an “EU candidate countries” aggregate can be created by adding data for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, and Türkiye for the relevant position.
Not applicable.
None.