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.
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