Women remain outnumbered in management

The current COVID-19 pandemic has led to unprecedented changes in the workplace. As a result, managers face a challenging task of planning, directing, coordinating or performing other activities critical for good functioning of their teams, companies or organisations. While both women and men bring different qualities to crisis management, women remain outnumbered at the management level. In Q3 2020, more than 9.5 million people held a managerial position in the EU: 6.2 million men and 3.3 million women. Although women represent almost half of all employed persons in the EU (46%), they are under-represented amongst managers (34%). With some bumps on the road, this share has gradually increased from just below 30% in Q2 2002 (beginning of the time series). Source dataset: LFSQ_EGAIS Highest share of female managers in Latvia and Poland, lowest in Croatia Among EU Member States, the largest share of women at managerial positions in Q3 2020 was recorded in Latvia (45%) and Poland (44%), followed by Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia and Sweden (all 42%). At the opposite end of the scale, women account for only around a quarter of managers in Croatia (24%), the Netherlands (26%) and Cyprus (27%). Source dataset: LFSQ_EGAIS This article is part of a series of articles published in the run-up to the International Women's Day. For more information: Eurostat website section dedicated to gender based indicators Eurostat database on gender equality Eurostat news article on gender employment gap by education level Statistics Explained articles: Employment - quarterly statistics and Employment in detail - quarterly statistics The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) database The UN website dedicated to the International Women's Day Managerial positions are defined according to the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-08). Managers plan, direct, coordinate and evaluate the overall activities of enterprises, governments and other organizations, or of organizational units within them, and formulate and review their policies, laws, rules and regulations. The source of data is EU Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS). Germany: Q4 2019 data as Q1-Q3 2020 data are not available for Germany. Due to technical issues with the introduction of the new German system of integrated household surveys, including the Labour Force Survey (LFS), the achieved sample for Q1-Q3 2020 is not large enough to allow for dissemination of the German figures. However, these are included in the computations of the EU aggregate. For more information: see here. To contact us, please visit our User Support page. For press queries, please contact our Media Support.

Women totalled almost a third of STEM graduates in 2021

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the representation of women in STEM education fields: natural sciences, mathematics and statistics, information and communication technologies, engineering, manufacturing and construction. Women are largely underrepresented in these fields. In 2021, in the EU, women tertiary education graduates (International Standard Classification of Education - ISCED levels 5-8), in STEM fields, accounted for 32.8% of the total graduates, +0.3 percentage points (pp) when compared with 2020 (32.5%). The highest shares of women tertiary education graduates in STEM in 2021 were recorded in Romania (42.5%), Poland (41.5%), Greece (40.9%) and Italy (39.0%). Source dataset: tps00217 At the other end of the scale, the lowest shares were reported in Belgium (27.4%), Spain and Germany (both 27.7%) and Austria (28.0%).

Jobs with the highest shares of women in Q3 2023

In the third quarter of 2023, in the EU, the majority of employed people aged 15-64 years were men, 53.5% men compared with 46.5% women. Nevertheless, in some major occupation groups as classified by the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO), women represented the larger share: 65.8% of clerical support workers were women, 63.5% of service and sales workers, 54.3% of professionals e.g. scientists, teachers, and 53.0% of those in elementary occupations were women. Women were equally represented as men among technicians and associate professionals (50.0%). In contrast, women were rarely employed as craft and related trades workers (11.1%) and plant and machine operators and assemblers (17.9%). And among managers, only 34.7% were women. Source dataset: LFS ad-hoc extraction Childcare and teachers’ aides - 93% women When looking at more detailed ISCO classification, women in the EU made up the vast majority of people employed in specific occupations, including childcare workers and teachers