On Tuesday December 10 2019, EU ministers in charge of gender equality (EPSCO) adopted Council conclusions based on our review of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA).

Our findings show that no EU country has yet fully implemented this blueprint for women’s empowerment, with issues such as ageing societies, migration and climate change bringing new challenges for gender equality.

The ageing population of the EU is increasing demand for long-term care, which impacts women most as they do the bulk of unpaid care work at home. Caring responsibilities keep 7.7 million women and about half a million men out of the labour market.

Migration has triggered a response focussed on security and border control and significant effort is needed on integration. Around one in two people from a non-EU migrant background are at risk of poverty and social exclusion, and half of migrant women are out of employment.

When it comes to gender equality and climate change, although women are more likely to adopt eco-friendly behaviour, key decision-making positions in the environmental sector are dominated by men: only a fifth of government ministers dealing with environment, climate change, energy and transport are women.

Read more in our press release or see our Beijing+25 presentation. An initial version of the EIGE report has also been published by the Council of the European Union online, available here.

Explore the Beijing+25 statistics in our Gender Statistics Database.