EU logs lowest gender gap in cultural employment in 2024

Between 2015 and 2024, the EU gender gap in cultural employment dropped from 6.4 percentage points (pp) (53.2% of men vs 46.8% of women) to 0.8 pp in 2024 (50.4% of men vs 49.6% of women). This marks the lowest gender gap in cultural employment in the last decade and since data are available (2011). 

In 2024, in 16 EU countries, the share of women in cultural employment exceeded that of men, most notably in Latvia and Estonia, with differences of 32.6 pp and 24.2 pp in favour of women, respectively. In contrast, in 11 EU countries the share of cultural employment was higher for men, with the highest shares being in Spain and Italy, with around 10 pp in favour of men. While Greece, Romania and Austria had almost no gender gap in cultural employment.

Source dataset: cult_emp_sex

While the gender gap in cultural employment has narrowed significantly, this balance is still not reflected in earnings. The latest results of the 4-yearly structure of earnings survey show that in 2022, at the EU level, 16.1% of the female employees in the selected cultural activities were low-wage earners (earning two-thirds or less of the national median gross hourly earnings) compared with 11.2% of male employees. These figures are consistent with those for total employment: 17.1% for women vs 12.6% for men. 

This disparity is also evident when broken down by cultural activity, as the share of women earning low wages was higher than that of men in all selected activities. The most unbalanced sector was the ‘printing and reproduction of recorded media’, with 25.9% of women with low wages compared with 12.4% of men. This category was followed by ‘motion picture, video and television programme production, sound recording and music publishing activities’, with 23.0% for women and 15.1% for men.  

Source datasets: earn_ses_pub1s and  ad hoc extraction from the Structure of Earnings 2022