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Last updated: 15 July 2026

Gender equality

Gender equality refers to equality between women and men with respect to their rights, treatment, responsibilities, opportunities, participation and economic and social achievements. Gender equality is achieved when men and women have the same rights, responsibilities and opportunities across all sections of society and when the different interests, needs and priorities of men and women are equally valued.  

Find the latest content on this topic below.

15 July 2026
Overschooled and underpaid: The riddle of opposing gender gaps in pay and education
Despite decades of progress, the gender pay gap persists across the EU. This report explores the labour market evidence behind the gap, from employment and wages to field of study, and what it reveals about an enduring policy challenge.
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Research report
29 May 2026
Behind the scenes of the European Working Conditions Survey
Since its launch in 1990, the European Working Conditions Survey has provided a comprehensive overview of working conditions in Europe. The EWCS 2024 asserts that the European labour market is in transition, pointing to a decline in long working hours and uneven improvements in job quality. In this episode of Eurofound Talks, Mary McCaughey invites Senior Research Manager Agnès Parent-Thirion to talk about the survey behind the headlines, and the work that goes into carrying it out.
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Podcast episode
14 April 2026
European Working Conditions Survey 2024 – Highlights
This digital story presents the highlights from the European Working Conditions Survey 2024 overview report. It explores key findings from each chapter of the report focusing on the European workforce, workplace practices, measuring job quality, trends over time in job quality, as well as the quality of working life in the EU.
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Digital story

Employment

  • Two out of three net new jobs (i.e. jobs created minus jobs lost) in the EU over the last two decades have been taken up by women, and mostly by women in two age groups: 30–49 years and 50+ years.  

  • More women than ever are in paid work: around 46% of EU workers now are women, compared with 40% a generation ago. According to Eurostat, the employment rate of women (aged 20–64 years) stood at 71.3% in 2026 against a rate of 80.9% for men, meaning a gender employment gap of 9.6 percentage points.

  • The gender employment gap has been narrowing slowly for years but stagnated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdowns disproportionately affected low-paying service sectors with a majority of female workers, thus forcing more women out of the labour market. Employment picked up faster for women than for men, however, in the post-pandemic recovery.

  • The gender employment gap varies greatly among Member States. While in Lithuania there are more women at work than men, in Greece, Romania and Italy the employment rate of women is over 17% lower than that of men.

  • The gender employment gap inflicts a severe economic cost on society, resulting in a massive loss of female talent, foregone individual earnings and missed social welfare contributions. Eurofound research estimated that the economic cost of this gap across the EU was over €390 billion in 2023 alone – a figure equivalent to roughly 2.3% of total EU gross domestic product (GDP).

  • Upward convergence in the gender employment gap has been recorded since the launch of the European Pillar of Social Rights in 2017, meaning that both the EU gender employment gap and the disparities among Member States in relation to it have decreased.

  • Women continue to be significantly overrepresented in low-paying jobs, but female employment has been growing faster than male employment in the highest-paying jobs.

Wages

  • Women are overrepresented among the low-paid and minimum wage earners in nearly all EU Member States.

  • The gender pay gap persists, with women in the EU earning 11.1% less per hour than men in 2024. The gender pay gapopens in new tab  is highest in well-paid jobs. This is a common pattern across Member States and occurs despite younger women increasingly outperforming younger men in educational attainment.

  • The reasons why women in the EU earn less per hour than men run deeper than unequal pay for the same job. Many organisations believe objective job evaluation systems are fair, yet these often reward the job demands typical of male-dominated roles while undervaluing what female-dominated roles often require, such as emotional labour, patient care and repetitive physical strain.

  • Pay transparency can help expose these gaps, but its track record is mixed. Its effectiveness depends heavily on how measures are designed and implemented. For employers who get it right, the benefits go beyond compliance; transparency becomes a strategic lever for talent acquisition and retention, employee trust and innovation.

  • Variable forms of pay, such as company shares for employees or payments based on company performance, are becoming more common. Receipt of these pay components is increasing more rapidly among men than women, which may widen the gender pay gap.

Working conditions

  • Gender inequalities in labour markets, employment and workplaces stretch well beyond labour market segmentation and gender pay gaps into the working conditions and job quality that women and men experience. Differences in working conditions for women and men are found across Member States, sectors and occupations.

  • Men report higher levels of quantitative demands at work, such as working to tight deadlines or at high speed, whereas women are much more likely to report exposure to emotional demands, such as handling angry clients, patients or pupils, or being in situations that are emotionally disturbing

  • Men report higher job quality than women across five of the seven job quality dimensions covered in Eurofound’s research. In some areas, the gap is widening – work intensity is worsening for women while improving for men – highlighting the need for targeted policy attention.

  • Women are underrepresented as managers in almost all economic sectors. Management is most gender-balanced in the public sector, although men dominate here too.

Quality of life

  • Women and men have similar levels of subjective well-being across Europe. However, when other factors (especially income) are removed from the analysis, women have higher life satisfaction than men, which implies that lower average income contributes to a reduction in women’s average well-being.

  • Most nuclear families are dual-earning, and this type of family has the most unbalanced allocation of unpaid work: women do the most housework, and many have problems with work–life balance.

  • Women are twice as likely to provide long-term care than men every day. The difference is highest at age 50–64.

  • As well as the clear economic objective to close the gender employment gap, there is also a social imperative due to its implications for women’s lives, including their financial security and quality of life.

  • The COVID-19 crisis highlighted the critical role care services play in supporting women’s labour market participation, financial security and overall well-being. It is essential that Member States support the provision of good-quality, accessible and affordable care services for children, people with disabilities and the elderly, while addressing staff shortages and improving the working conditions in these sectors.

  • The tenacity of gender inequality demands renewed efforts to bring about real change in gender norms, behaviours and policy innovation. It will be crucial for policymakers, including the social partners, to prioritise gender issues while continuing to monitor and evaluate progress.

Eurofound adopts a gender mainstreaming approach systematically in its research. Where possible and relevant, research findings, including surveys and policy analyses, disaggregate data by gender. Other research projects provide specific analysis relevant to gender equality. The research covers a wider variety of topics from a gender perspective, such as pay and income, minimum wage, care, employment participation, leave, skills and training, work organisation, job quality, working time, work–life balance and convergence and social cohesion, including in pan-European surveys and regular reporting at national level.

Employment and gender

Eurofound research explores the characteristics, consequences and resulting cost of gender gaps in labour market participation, as well as policies and measures aimed at fostering female labour market participation. Research also looks at upward convergence in the gender employment gap, assessing which are the best-performing and worst-performing Member States in this regard.

The European Jobs Monitor (EJM) tracks structural change in European labour markets in terms of occupation and sector, giving a qualitative assessment of these shifts using various proxies of job quality. This monitoring includes analysis of patterns of employment change by gender and by job–wage quintile, as well as labour market segregation.

Gender equality since COVID-19

Eurofound’s Living and Working in the EU e-survey offers an insight into the impact of the pandemic on the lives of EU citizens. Conducted over several rounds since 2020, it allows for comparison of the challenges of living through the different stages of the pandemic and in subsequent years. The analysis covers the impact on gender equality at home in relation to domestic and care responsibilities, the uptake of teleworking and especially among women, work–life balance issues among men and women, and financial strain during the pandemic. The e-survey questionnaire draws on questions used in Eurofound’s pan-European surveys: the European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) and the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS).

Eurofound’s  EU PolicyWatch database collates and maps national-level policy responses across Europe to the COVID-19 crisis, the war in Ukraine and rising inflation. Some of these measures have a gender dimension.

Wages and gender

Eurofound research covers a range of topics linking wages and gender, such as variable pay, performance-related pay, low pay and the gender pay gap. Survey research looks at earnings as one of seven indicators of job quality for men and women at work.

On minimum wages, an annual review monitors the level of minimum wages across Europe; in 2019, it measured coverage rates of workers by gender and examined the link with the gender pay gap. Furthermore, the EJM looks at the extent to which different jobs, occupations and sectors contribute to the gender pay gap. This is useful for the interpretation of the European Commission’s social scoreboard indicator on the gender pay gap and for the implementation of the gender-equality principle of the European Pillar of Social Rights.

Eurofound reviewed the first experiences of countries with gender pay transparency measures in 2018. At the Commission’s request, Eurofound initiated a study on measures to promote gender pay transparency in companies, looking at how much they cost and whether they are beneficial to companies.

Working conditions and gender

Eurofound’s European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) covers a range of aspects of working conditions from a gender perspective. The survey monitors occupational, sectoral, time and pay gaps, as well as working time patterns, work–life balance, violence and harassment at work, and health and well-being, including what all this means for sustainable work. The findings from the EWCS 2024 are now available.

EWCS analysis helps to inform policies aimed at closing gender gaps in the area of job and employment quality. The knowledge provided is relevant for promoting the principle of gender equality and implementing initiatives to improve work–life balance, as well as those gender equality initiatives included in the context of the European Pillar of Social Rights and implementation of the European Gender Equality Strategy.

Our research also looks at the experience of women in management roles and how their underrepresentation in management can be addressed. It analyses the job quality of both male and female managers, and the impact a management job has on personal life.

Other research examines female entrepreneurship in Europe and the market gap when it comes to investing in women-led enterprises. It examines the financial hurdles facing female entrepreneurs and the use of private or public funds to invest in this group. In addition, it investigates the prevalence of public finance tools and support schemes that effectively remove barriers and enable women to become successful entrepreneurs.

The higher participation of women in the labour market has prompted changes in the way European social partner organisations tackle gender issues. Eurofound's research has assessed the role of the EU social partners in advancing gender equality, exploring actions taken within the different national frameworks of industrial relations and against the ranking of Member States on EIGE’s Gender Equality Index.

Moreover, Eurofound has worked on a joint project with the International Labour Organization (ILO) to look at working conditions in a global perspective. It expands on gender gaps across the world (covering 1.2 billion workers) and provides evidence on the gendered differences in job quality and on higher risk of women being exposed to sexual violence; the latter is also identified in EWCS 2015.

Quality of life and gender

The European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) covers the gender dimension in relation to issues such as employment, income, risk of poverty, household composition and well-being, education, family and care responsibilities, health and work–life balance.

Data from both the EWCS and EQLS contribute to the policy debate around reconciling the demands of work and home, and work–life balance for men and women. The EQLS looks at the difference between men and women in their levels of life satisfaction or happiness. The gendered division of unpaid work, in relation to, for example, childcare or caring for elderly relatives, is also covered in the EQLS.

Research on patterns of social mobility for men and women across the EU looks at barriers to equal opportunities and policies to promote the improvement of people’s economic status. It highlights the increasingly important gendered patterns of social mobility in different countries.

Eurofound collaboration with EIGE

Eurofound cooperates with the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) on gender-related topics. Eurofound is a key data provider for EIGE’s Gender Equality Index and is involved in the working group for this indicator. Following on from a number of collaborations in recent years, other areas for cooperation between the two Agencies in 2026 include research related the implementation of gender pay transparency measures, gender gaps in unpaid care, individual and social activities, care services, gender-neutral job evaluation, building resilience in the EU workforce, reintegrating economically inactive persons impacted by care responsibilities, wage determinants in the EU, social implications of the just transition, labour market dynamics, online platform work, migrant workers and the Western Balkans.

6 March 2026
Episode 42Is work in Europe more stressful for women?
In a special video recorded for International Women's Day at the European Parliament’s VoxBox Studios, Maria Walsh MEP and Eurofound’s Barbara Gerstenberger analyse key gender equality findings from a survey of over 36,000 workers across 35 countries. Their conversation highlights how women have been impacted by significant shifts in the workplace, particularly regarding modern challenges like burnout and technostress.
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Listen to or watch our video on Gender disparities in the workplace with insights from Eurofound expert Barbara Gerstenberger.
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Background

Gender equality is a core value of the European Union, a fundamental right, a critical component of economic growth and a key principle of the European Pillar of Social Rights. Although significant progress has been made in furthering gender equality in recent decades, gender inequalities persist in areas such as employment, pay, pensions, decision-making and care responsibilities.

Gender equality continues to be a top priority for the European Commission. Following the implementation of the Gender Equality Strategy 2020–2025, the Commission adopted a Roadmap for Women’s Rights on 7 March 2025, setting out a long-term vision for advancing women's rights and addressing emerging challenges such as technology-facilitated discrimination and violence. Building on this roadmap, on 5 March 2026, the Commission published the Gender Equality Strategy 2026–2030, translating the objectives of the roadmap into actionable policies. The new strategy aims to embed gender equality across all policy areas and focuses on issues such as gender-based violence, cyberviolence, equal pay, women's health, work–life balance, gender equality in leadership and decision-making, and the gender impacts of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.

One of the first deliverables of the previous strategy was the Pay Transparency Directive, adopted by the Council on 24 April 2023. Under the new strategy, the Commission will continue to support the social partners in the implementation of the directive. Other milestones include the European Care Strategy presented in September 2022, which is linked to enhancing women's labour market participation, as well as a Directive on gender balance on corporate boards, adopted in November 2022.

Since 2020, the European Parliament has held a European Gender Equality Week at the initiative of the Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee (FEMM). During the week, EIGE publishes the findings of its Gender Equality Index.

This is a selection of the most important outputs for this topic.

15 July 2026

Research report

Overschooled and underpaid: The riddle of opposing gender gaps in pay and education

Despite decades of progress, the gender pay gap persists across the EU. This report explores the labour market evidence behind the gap, from employment and wages to field of study, and what it reveals about an enduring policy challenge.
Two engineers in safety jackets analyze 3D mechanical designs on computer screens in a modern factory setting.
Read more about Overschooled and underpaid: The riddle of opposing gender gaps in pay and education

14 April 2026

Flagship report

European Working Conditions Survey 2024: Overview report

Now in its eighth edition, the European Working Conditions Survey 2024 maps changes in working life over more than three decades. This high-quality, probability-based survey covers 35 European countries, including the 27 EU Member States, Norway, Switzerland, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia. Over 36,600 face-to-face interviews, each lasting approximately 45 minutes, took place as part of the survey.
Cover image for Eurofound's European Working Conditions Survey 2024 overview report. Two workers in safety gear stand at sunset, examining wind turbines. One holds a laptop, and the other points towards the turbines.
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15 December 2025

Research report

Equal value, equal pay: Concepts, mechanisms and implementation towards gender pay equity

This report presents an in-depth compilation of evidence and analysis on how the EU’s principle of equal pay for the same work and work of equal value can be implemented in practice, with a particular focus on work of equal value – thus, pay equity. According to this principle, when two jobs can be regarded as equivalent in terms of skills, effort, responsibilities and working conditions, they should be remunerated equally. But how can such equivalence be established?
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18 November 2025

Eurofound research paper

Taking stock: Further experiences in gender pay transparency implementation and effectiveness

Despite decades of policy efforts, the gender pay gap in the EU, while slowly decreasing, is still persistent. In 2023, the Pay Transparency Directive was adopted, with the intent of advancing existing national approaches by mandating comprehensive transparency instruments, expanding reporting requirements, reinvigorating the ‘work of equal value’ principle, and shifting the burden of proof from workers to employers in discrimination cases, among the most significant developments.
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25 September 2008

Customised report

Mind the gap – Women’s and men’s quality of work and employment - Background paper

Gender mainstreaming is an integral part of the research conducted by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. When labour market participation, working conditions and the resulting labour market outcomes are analysed, the difference in the situation of women and men is evident. This report highlights the main issues concerning women’s situation in the labour market and indicate where the principal barriers to women’s labour market participation lie.

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15 May 2023

Policy brief

Gender differences in motivation to engage in platform work

The rise of the platform economy during the last decade is one of the main disrupting forces for European labour markets. While standard employment remains the norm, platforms are expanding their reach and diversifying into novel business models. In doing so, they are also attracting an increasing number of women. This policy brief investigates why women are joining the platform economy and how the motivations to perform work on platforms differ between genders. It shows that while women join platforms to gain an additional income and because it allows them the flexibility to combine work with household chores or family commitments, men are driven by the opportunities provided by platforms to work globally and to expand their client base. At the same time, findings suggest that online platforms seem to provide women with a link to the labour market that can potentially prevent their withdrawal from the labour force during different life stages. These findings suggest that policy action should focus on extending working hours regulations and work–life balance measures to all platform workers, irrespective of employment status, and promote equal sharing of care responsibilities between women and men.

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13 October 2022

Research report

COVID-19 pandemic and the gender divide at work and home

The COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated inequalities in many dimensions of European societies, including inequalities between women and men in several key domains. This report looks at gender inequalities that existed prior to the COVID-19 crisis and describes in what ways the pandemic has impacted on gender divides. It also analyses the various policy responses of national governments across the EU to address gender divides, and to prevent their widening during the pandemic. The effects of the pandemic on employment at EU-level has been remarkably gender-neutral on the whole, with nuances emerging within different sectors and socioeconomic groups. The pre-existing gender gaps in unpaid work have persisted, leading to work–life conflicts, especially among teleworking mothers of young children. Finally, the report describes the outlook for gender inequalities in Europe, pointing to factors that will shape the future of equality between women and men: gender segregation in labour markets, gender divides in telework and hybrid work, and gender mainstreaming in policymaking – especially in relation to caregiving and care services.

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14 December 2021

Research report

European Jobs Monitor 2021: Gender gaps and the employment structure

One of the most striking developments of the last half-century has been the huge rise in the labour market participation of women. Two out of every three net new jobs created over the last two decades in the EU were taken by women. At the same time, sharply rising employment rates among older workers due to population ageing and policy changes have increased the share of older workers in the labour market. This report examines the impacts of the changing contours of labour supply on the employment structure over the last quarter-century in Europe (1995–2019). The primary focus is on gender, with a secondary focus on ageing. Among the main findings are that employment shares in gender-balanced jobs have declined despite the rising female share of employment and that gender pay gaps are highest in well-paid jobs.

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14 December 2021

Policy brief

Understanding the gender pay gap: What role do sector and occupation play?

Despite the increasing participation of women in the labour market and a higher share of women than men being hired into well-paid jobs in recent years, a gender pay gap exists across all EU Member States. Pay differentials between women and men have been shown to be significantly influenced by the economic sector where people work and the occupation they hold.

This policy brief examines these dimensions. It also identifies how much these and other factors contribute to gender disparities in pay. The analysis finds that, of the observable factors examined, the greater likelihood of women working in lower-paying sectors and working part-time are the most important contributors to the gender pay gap. Nevertheless, around two-thirds of the gap in the EU remains unexplained by individual and employment-related factors typically analysed, suggesting that other factors not captured by survey wage data account for the rest of it.

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Researchers at Eurofound provide expert insights and can be contacted for questions or media requests.

Sanna Nivakoski

Research officer
Social policies research

Sanna Nivakoski is a research officer in the Social Policies unit at Eurofound. Before joining Eurofound in 2021, she worked as a post-doctoral researcher at University College Dublin's Geary Institute for Public Policy, the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin, and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. She has worked in many research areas in microeconomics, including retirement income and wealth, pension saving, intergenerational transfers and the financial impact of widowhood. Sanna holds a PhD in Economics from Trinity College Dublin.

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Barbara Gerstenberger

​Head of Unit
Working life research

Barbara Gerstenberger is Head of the Working Life unit at Eurofound. In this role, she coordinates the research teams investigating job quality in Europe based on the European Working Conditions Survey and industrial relations in the EU. She joined Eurofound in 2001 as a research manager in the then newly established European Monitoring Centre on Change (EMCC). In 2007, she moved to Eurofound’s Information and Communication unit as Head of Communication Products, before being appointed Coordinator in the Directorate in 2011. Previously, she worked as senior research officer in the European Metalworkers’ Federation in Brussels. A graduate in political science from Hamburg University, she completed a Master's degree in Public Administration at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

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Carlos Vacas‑Soriano

Senior research manager
Employment research

Carlos Vacas Soriano is a senior research manager in the Employment unit at Eurofound. He works on topics related to wage and income inequalities, minimum wages, low pay, job quality, temporary employment and segmentation, and job quality. Prior to joining Eurofound in 2010, he worked as a macroeconomic analyst for the European Commission and as a researcher in European labour markets at the Spanish Central Bank. He holds an MA in European Economic Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges and a PhD in Labour Economics from the University of Salamanca (Doctor Europaeus).

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Karel Fric

Research officer
Social policies research

Karel Fric is a research officer in the Social Policies unit at Eurofound. His work involves survey research, data analysis and project management, with a particular focus on working and living conditions, equality and discrimination. He previously worked as a researcher at the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights in Vienna, Austria, and at Panteia, a research and consulting organisation based in Zoetermeer, the Netherlands. Karel holds a PhD in Social Sciences from Erasmus University Rotterdam and a Master’s degree in Economics from Utrecht University.

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