The Gender Statistics Database (GSD) of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) contains data on the numbers of women and men in key decision-making positions across a number of different life domains. Data may cover international, European, national, regional and local levels and currently include 37 European countries. Data covered the United Kingdom up to 2024. The GSD aims to provide reliable statistics that can be used to monitor the current situation and trends over time.
The domains covered include politics, public administration, judiciary, business and finance, social partners and NGOs, environment, media, science and research, sports, and transport. The decision-making positions covered are specific to each area.
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.
WMID Methodological report
The media domain includes statistics on women and men in highest decision-making bodies of national public broadcasters and regulatory authorities with the responsibility for overseeing media activities in each country. Data on media cover the presidents, members of the highest decision-making bodies, executives and non-executives and the CEOs of national public broadcasters and the presidents and members of the highest decision-making bodies in media regulatory authorities in each country (where applicable).
Organisations covered:
- Publicly owned broadcasting organisations: TV, radio and news agencies operating at the national level. In cases where no national level public broadcasters exist, the highest sub-national (regional) organisations are included instead. In all other cases, regional and local organisations are excluded. TV, radio and news agencies are counted separately provided they have separate operational structures with independent decision-making bodies.
- Independent regulatory authorities: responsible for overseeing media activities at the national level. In cases where there is no independent media regulatory authority at the national level, the highest sub-national (regional) organisation(s) is included instead. In all other cases, regional and local authorities are excluded. The self-regulatory organisations comprised solely of representatives of media organisations (e.g. journalists unions) and the organisations with responsibilities not strictly related to broadcasting regulation and competency are also not included.
Positions covered:
- President: chairperson of the highest decision-making body
- Members: For broadcasters, data cover all members of the highest decision-making bodies in each organisation (i.e. chairperson, non-executive directors, senior executives and employee representatives, where present). For media regulatory authorities, data cover members of the highest decision-making body (count includes the president). In cases where no decision-making body is present, the highest in hierarchy executive and senior executives are counted instead.
- CEO (public broadcasting organisations only): Chief Executive Officer or equivalent position.
- Executives (public broadcasting organisations only): all executive members (if any) of the highest decision-making body and all members of the highest executive committee/board with responsibility for day-to-day management of the organisation.
- Non-executives (public broadcasting organisations only): data cover non-executive directors in the highest decision-making body and in the highest executive committee/board (if any) in each organisation. Employee representatives participating in the highest decision-making body are included in the count of non-executive members.
Mapping tables: