.jpg)
Finland, Portugal and France top EU workplace gender-equality ranking
Hungary, Cyprus and Czechia come bottom
Finland has the most gender-equal workplaces in the EU, followed by Portugal and France, with Hungary bottom of the ranking just below Cyprus and Czechia, finds a new study by Swedish personal finance news channel Finansvalp.
The research is based on analysis of Eurostat data of women in parliament and national government, as well as women in senior management and executive roles, alongside median net income by gender in EU member countries.
Finansvalp said Finland, which scored 36.86 out of a potential 50, ranked highest for women in senior roles and women in national government, with 72.4% of seats in national government held by females. However, the data also reveals a gender pay gap in Finland of 6.35%, while Portugal, a close second in the overall ranking on 36.09, records a higher median net income for women than men, making it the only EU nation where female workers earn more.
But Portugal’s metrics in other measures record the sixth-lowest share of female executives, with women accounting for 19.6% of executive roles at the country’s largest listed companies.
France’s score was driven by a large percentage of women in leadership roles, Finansvalp said. Women account for 46.1% of board members at France’s largest listed companies, the highest of all EU countries.
Hungary sat at the bottom of the ranking, with a score of just ten out of 50, after recording zero women in seats at national government level and the lowest number females in parliament in any EU country. Cyprus was 26th on 14.62 and Czechia in 25th place on 15.29.
Bulgaria registers the highest gender pay gap of all 27 member states at 10.69%, followed by Lithuania at 10.28% and Latvia at 8.09%.
Olle Pettersson, finance expert and CEO of Finansvalp, said: “In the last 20 years, the number of women holding seats at national government and national parliament level in the EU has risen by over 50%, while the share of female board members at the largest publicly listed companies has exploded by 312%.”
“If the trend of greater female representation continues in senior positions across the EU, we should hopefully see the gender pay gap reduce, making many countries more inclusive places for women to work,” he added.
