Big differences in female share of employment and management in Europe

On average, women make up 36% of all managers in Europe. Some of the newer Member States lead the way in terms of the equal representation of men and women both in labour markets and in management. This graph shows the female share of management in each of the Member States.

The graph shows big differences, with around 20 percentage points between Greece at the low end and Lithuania at the high end. Little more than a quarter of all managers in Greece and the Czech Republic are women, whereas in Lithuania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Latvia, women account for over 40% of managers, more than 5 percentage points above the EU average.

Looking at the female share of workers in employment adds a further dimension to this picture. While just over a third of managers in the EU are women, women constitute nearly half (48%) of all people with a job. Malta, a country in which women account for 40% of all workers, also lags behind the EU average for female presence at management level (31%). And although Portugal may have an even gender distribution in the workforce as a whole, only 33% of managers are women – one of the largest gaps in the EU.

• Download the policy brief: Women in management: Underrepresented and overstretched?