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Structural Gender Equality in Europe and Its Evolution Over the First Decade of the Twentyfirst Century

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Abstract

This paper presents the annual time series and the average annual growth rate of the European Gender Equality Index, which was proposed by Bericat (Soc Indic Res 108:1–28, 2012), for the EU and its 27 member countries for the period 2000–2011. The paper also reports the time series and average annual growth rate for each of the three subdimensions of gender equality—education, work, and power—and the underlying indicators for each subdimension for EU as a whole. The calculated index shows that in the period 2000–2011, overall gender equality, equality in education, work, and power in the EU has been improving at a rate of 1.7, 0.92, 0.65, and 3.48 % per year, respectively. By 2011, overall gender equality, and equality in education, work, and power has reached 58.3, 77.4, 60.9, and 42.7, respectively. In short, this paper offers the scientific community, as well as those that design and implement public policies, a robust, valid and precise synthetic description of the current situation and evolution, from 2000 to 2011, of structural gender equality in European countries.

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Notes

  1. \( EGEI = \left( {e^{x} \left( {\frac{1}{n}\mathop \sum \limits_{i = 1}^{n} \ln {\mathcal{R}}_{i} } \right)} \right) \cdot 100 .\)

  2. All of the values for the EU as a whole are estimated by calculating the arithmetic mean of the values for the 27 countries of the EU, weighted by the population 15 years of age and over in each country in 2006.

  3. The rate is calculated using the following formula:

    \( r \left( {t_{0} , t_{n} } \right) = \left( {V_{{\left( {t_{n} } \right)}} /V_{{\left( {t_{0} } \right)}} } \right)^{{\frac{1}{{t_{n} - t_{0} }}}} - 1 \)

    where r is the compound annual growth rate, \( V_{{\left( {t_{n} } \right)}} \) the value of the EGER index in the last year, \( V_{{\left( {t_{0} } \right)}} \) the value of EGER index in the first year, and \( t_{0} y t_{n} \) the initial and final years.

    The number of years needed to move from one level to another in gender inequality—a given growth rate remaining constant—can be estimated by the following equation:

    \( n = \ln \left( {\frac{{Vt_{n} }}{{Vt_{0} }}} \right)/ ln\left( {r + 1} \right) \),

    where n is the number of years, and ln the natural logarithm.

  4. For further details, see: OECD (2012, 2013, 2104a, 2015), European Commission (2011b, 2004–2014), Eurydice (2012), Betio and Solera (2013), Charles and Bradley (2002), Gundert and Mayer (2012), McDaniel and Buchmann (2010), Barone (2012), Goldin (2006), Smyth (2005), Valentova et al. (2007), Arulampalam et al. (2004).

  5. For further details, see: Eurofound (2007, 2009, 2010, 2013), OECD ( 2010, 2012), Bettio et al. (2013), Bettio and Verashchagina (2009), Arulampalam et al. (2007), Blau and Kahn (2003), Sparreboom (2014), Perales (2014), Booth and Van Ours (2008), Davoine et al. (2008).

  6. For further details, see: European Commission (2010c, 2011a, 2012), Eurofound (2009), OECD (2104b), Zahidi and Ibarra (2010), Delgado-Márquez et al. (2013), Dahlerup (2007), Kuperus and Rode (2008).

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Acknowledgments

This research has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Research Project: “Social Quality in Europe. Design and Development of Composite Indexes for the Measurement and Monitoring of the Quality of European Societies” (CSO2012-35032).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Faculty of Communication, University of Seville, Avda. Américo Vespucio, s/n, Isla de la Cartuja, Seville, Spain

    Eduardo Bericat

  2. Servicio Andaluz de Empleo, Junta de Andalucía, Seville, Spain

    Eva Sánchez Bermejo

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  1. Eduardo Bericat
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Correspondence to Eduardo Bericat.

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Bericat, E., Sánchez Bermejo, E. Structural Gender Equality in Europe and Its Evolution Over the First Decade of the Twentyfirst Century. Soc Indic Res 127, 55–81 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-0949-y

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