Portugal scored 63.4 points out of 100, a decrease of 5.2 points from 2024, matching the average value of European countries, but still managed to climb five positions to secure the tenth spot in the ranking established by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) to evaluate the development of gender equality policies.
Leading the ranking are Sweden (73.7 points), France (73.4), and Denmark (71.8).
Luxembourg surpassed Portugal with 63.9 points, while Germany fell slightly behind, ranking 11th with 63.2 points out of a possible 100.
According to EIGE, Portugal is part of the group of countries experiencing upward convergence—alongside Denmark, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Finland, and Sweden—that are “improving their scores over time while simultaneously closing the gap with the EU average.”
The Gender Equality Index tracks the progress of countries in six areas: work, money, knowledge, time, power, and health, providing ratings on a scale of 0 to 100, besides monitoring violence against women and intersectional inequalities.
Portugal’s rating is partially explained by its performance in the health area, where it achieved 80.6 points out of 100, followed by money, with 79.9 points.
Nevertheless, EIGE identifies Portugal, alongside Malta, as one of the countries with the “largest gender disparities in terms of healthy life years as a percentage of life expectancy, favoring men” with a 13 percentage point difference between genders.
In the area concerning power, where Portugal scored the lowest with 36.8 points, it is noted as one of nine member states that have enacted gender quotas by legislative decree for the boards of publicly listed companies.
“France, Italy, and, more recently, Spain have a 40% quota. In Belgium, the Netherlands, and Portugal, it is 33%,” it highlights.
In contrast, regarding political participation, EIGE notes that Portugal, similar to countries such as Cyprus or Bulgaria, experienced “some setbacks” with a five-point drop in the presence and proportion of women in parliament compared to 2020.
Conversely, Portugal contributed to the “increase of two percentage points in the proportion of women in regional and local assemblies in the EU” in recent years, having contributed to a four percentage point increase in its national proportion, along with Italy and Belgium. This increase was also aided by Denmark (11 percentage points), the Netherlands and Cyprus (six p.p.), Luxembourg, and Greece (five p.p.).
