Since 2013, the Gender Equality Index has been recognised by EU institutions and Member States as a key benchmark for gender equality in the EU. The 6th edition of the Index covers a range of indicators in the domains of society and life most affected by the COVID-19 crisis.
Although Index scores are mostly based on 2019 data, and therefore cannot capture the full impact of the crisis on gender equality, the report provides ample evidence of the pandemic’s negative repercussions on women in the domains of work, money, knowledge, time, power and health.
It also addresses the spike in violence against women and how the most disadvantaged and marginalised groups of women and men in society have borne the brunt of the impact.
Health, the thematic focus of this report, explores an additional three dimensions – health status (including mental health), health behaviours and access to health services. It also provides a gender and intersectional analysis of SRH and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gender Equality Index 2021 highlights
• The Gender Equality Index score for the EU is 68.0 points out of 100 (The Gender Equality Index 2021 is calculated for the 27 EU Member States (EU-27)). This is an improvement of just 0.6 points since the 2020 edition and of only 4.9 points in total since 2010. Even that minimal progress on gender equality is threatened by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Overall progress in gender equality between 2010 and 2019 was largely driven by advances in the domain of power, in particular improved gender balance on company boards and in politics. However, progress in other domains is much slower, and their impact on the overall progress in Index is lower. The contribution to the Index score of the domain of time is negative in the long term. An enormous increase in unpaid care during the COVID-19 crisis – particularly by women – has put a spotlight on long-standing gender inequalities in the home.
Source: Gender Equality Index 2021: Health, Report by the European Institute for Gender Equality
