The Gender Equality Index 2021
“Europe has made fragile achievements in gender equality. But huge losses are emerging as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The economic outcome is lasting longer for women, while life expectancy for men has decreased, ”said Carlien Scheele, director of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), when the issue was released. -Gender Equality Index 2021.
The Gender Equality Index (GEI) measures the progress of gender equality in the EU over time with a score from one to 100, where one is for total inequality between women. and men and 100 is for full equality between women and men.
The six areas measured by the GHG are employment, money, knowledge, time, power and health, along with two additional areas: violence against women and gender-based violence. intersectional inequalities. This GEI edition also has a thematic focus on health, analyzing sexual and reproductive health, mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Overall, the EU scored 68 points out of 100, an increase of only 0.6 points from the previous edition. Sweden maintained its first ranking with 83.9 points, while Malta increased its score to 65 points from 63.4 compared to the GEI 2020 edition and improved its ranking to 13th place out of 14. Malta also recorded the second highest progress on gender equality (+ 10.6 points) since 2010, after Luxembourg (+ 11.2 points).
In EU member states, each area of the index is characterized by developments and challenges in achieving gender equality. In fact, gender inequalities in the workplace and progress in labor market participation have narrowed and strong gender segregation continues. The negative effects of COVID-19 on employment prospects are greater for women and are likely to be longer lasting due to gender segregation and unequal distribution of care duties. unpaid. Malta recorded the highest gains in this area (+ 1.4 points), although small and lower than the progress recorded in the previous year (+ 2.1 points).
The money domain (82.4 points) has improved slightly from the previous edition. The risks of poverty and social exclusion were higher for women across the EU before the pandemic. However, the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to widen the income gap between women and men as more women in the EU have lost income to take on care duties, including home school. Malta’s score in this area reached 84.2, 1.8 points higher than the EU average.
The EU score for the domain of knowledge has remained unchanged (62.7 points) from the previous edition, improving only by 2.9 points since 2010. progress. Malta’s score decreased by 1.9 points due to a lower score regarding gender segregation.
EIGE was unable to revise the score in the time field due to data gaps and relied on 2016 data. In addition to childcare and long-term care for the elderly and people with disabilities and chronic illnesses, housework is the most unequally shared form of unpaid care.
About 78 percent of women in the EU spend at least an hour a day on housework, compared to 32 percent of men.
Malta has recorded the second highest progress on gender equality since 2010– Renee Laiviera
In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on people with care responsibilities, especially women with children. In most EU countries, scores in this area have increased since 2010, with Malta seeing the largest increase (+9.9 points).
With the lowest score of 55 points, the dominance of power has recorded the highest progress since 2010. However, women are still underrepresented in decision-making positions and progress in this area has been largely driven by a few countries that have taken legislative and other actions on gender representation. women in the largest listed companies.
Malta’s score in this area increased to 37.5 points due to a greater gender balance on the board of the national central bank and the Malta Council for Science and Technology. However, the under-representation of women in parliament and on the boards of listed companies in Malta is among the highest across the EU.
The score for the health domain remains the same as in the previous edition (87.8 points), with gender disparities in life expectancy and self-assessed health status. Malta is the second highest performing country in this field (92.3 points), which excels mainly in the subdomain on access to healthcare services.
With regard to violence against women, EIGE found that the only regularly updated data was on femicide. In 2018, in 14 member states, more than 600 murders of women by an intimate partner or family member / relative were recorded. Restrictive measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic have increased the risks of intimate partner violence against women, particularly for groups including older women, women and girls with disabilities, migrant women, homeless women and victims of trafficking.
The National Commission for the Promotion of Equality (NCPE) notes positively the general progress that Malta has made in achieving gender equality since 2010 as well as the progress in the spheres of health, work, money and power, from the previous edition of the GEI. On the other hand, NCPE also recognizes the challenges they face in moving forward in the remaining areas and is committed to continuing to work to safeguard equality for the benefit of women and men. all men.
As Scheele emphasized, the findings of the 2021 Gender Equality Index “can help Europe’s leaders address the different effects of the pandemic on women and men and mitigate the impact of equal in the short and long term ”.
Renee Laiviera is a Commissioner, National Commission for the Promotion of Equality.
The National Commission for the Promotion of Equality (NCPE) can be contacted on 2295 7850, via [email protected] or through its Facebook page.
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