Finland ranks second among EU countries in gender equality - distance remains to the goal
In Brussels today the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) released its second index measuring gender equality in the EU. Finland ranked second among the 28 member states. Coming in first was Sweden, and third was Denmark. In the first comparison in 2013 Finland still lagged behind Denmark, coming in third.
The index measures equality on a scale of 1-100. Finland got 72.7 points, while the average for the EU countries is 52.9. Sweden got 74.2 points, which means that even the countries with the most gender equality are far from the goal of 100 points in the index.
Finland is among the countries in which points depicting the state of gender equality have been growing since 2005. Of the EU member states, the points in nine of them clearly rose in 2005-2010, but declined in 2010-2012. Falling below 40 points this year were Romania, Slovakia, Portugal, Greece, Bulgaria, and Hungary.
The gender equality index is divided into six core domains: work, money, knowledge, time, power, and health. Finland does better than the EU average in all domains except health. The biggest divergences in Finland's favor from the EU average are in use of time and power positions. The best points for Finland in gender equality were for economic situation, participation in work, health, and political power. Compared with 2013 the greatest declines for Finland were in points depicting educational attainment and segregation. There was also a decline in political power.
The newly published gender equality index was the first one in which violence against women was evaluated on the basis of indicators based on survey data. According to the indicators, violence against women in Finland exceeds the EU average.
The biggest differences in equality between women and men in the EU countries are linked with the power positions of politics and economics and with time spent on caring and leisure activities.
The European Institute for Gender Equality has developed the gender equality index to measure equality between women and men and differences between women and men specifically in EU countries. The gauges used by the UN, for instance, in measuring equality are not fully suitable for depicting European reality, because they include indicators such as literacy, which are better suited to describe developing countries.
The placement of the countries has been calculated on the basis of statistics, including those of Eurostat from 2012. The information has been compared especially with the information from 2005 and 2010. The next index will be published in 2017.
Further information
Ministerial Adviser Eeva Raevaara, tel. +358 2951 63231, firstname.lastname@stm.fi