* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia
Some 400 million women live in Europe today and their way of life changes radically from one country to another. Although there are laws that supposedly guarantee women a position equal to that of men, in each of the countries they have to face barriers that have not yet been eliminated.
Do European women enjoy the same rights as men? The answer to this question varies from country to country. According to studies carried out worldwide, Europe occupies a privileged place in this matter, due to the legislation of the countries of northern Europe, although, according to the so-called GIN (gender inequality index) of the United Nations, It is specifically in Switzerland where inequality between both sexes is practically non-existent.
On the other hand, on that same scale of values, being also a European country, Macedonia is the country that occupies a sad 97th place among 164 countries. And Turkey, which only 3% belongs to Europe, comes to occupy 118, placing itself at the end of the queue.
All of this is mainly due to the fact that Europe is the continent with a high degree of economic and industrial development, so women have relatively high emoluments, and where legislation does not take into account a separation by sex, unlike the rest of the world.
The European Union, in 1992, through the so-called Maastricht Contract, explicitly stated equality between men and women.
However, in Europe today, a woman's life is still full of structural inequalities, depending on which Member State it is.
Greek women suffer the consequences of a permanent economic crisis. As far as women's legislative access to the labor market is concerned, Europe comes out very well.
On the other hand, it is the Russian woman who suffers the most difficult preconditions in terms of access to the labor market, since no less than around 400 professions, such as pilot, train driver, ship captain... etc. They are prohibited by law, although, according to the government, that list will soon be substantially reduced.
There are changes, but not substantial... In 2019, women continued to spend much more time than men taking care of children, the elderly, and their own home – without being paid for it.
Beyond the legal guarantees, it is Danish women who enjoy especially easy access to the labor market, almost under the same conditions as men, unlike Greece, with a complicated economic situation, so that Greek women have the ratio lowest in Europe for women in senior positions.
In Sweden, women have a lot of free time and yet they spend much more time than men – without being paid for it – taking care of their children and their home.
10% of European women do not even work, precisely because they have to take care of their children, compared to 1% of men. Therefore, women not only have lower earnings, but, on top of that, they have less free time, that is, they have little time left to dedicate to a sport or other leisure occupation.
And it is also in Sweden where the Government seeks to ensure equal conditions, through an Anti-Discrimination Law of 2009, according to which the employer has to facilitate both women and men to be able to combine work with family obligations.
They have the right to enjoy 240 days (not complete) of family time that cannot be transferred from mother to father or vice versa, and each child has the right to a place in a daycare center that is subsidized by the State. And the success of these stockings is evident!
According to the European Institute for an Equal Workplace Position (EIGE), in Sweden 50% of both women and men have time to organize some hobby with their children, outside the home. In Romania, and by way of comparison, there are not even 10% of women and men in a similar situation.
Luxembourgers – without children – are the best economically situated. According to the Global Wealth Databook of 2018, Crédit Suisse Bank considers that Europe is the region where women hold 40% of the total wealth, as well as, according to statistics, the region with the highest number of millionaires. Among European women, Norwegian women receive the highest gross income and, within the EU, it is Luxembourg.
The biggest difference is found in Latvia, where 60% of students are women and, by way of comparison, in Germany it is only 40%. In Latvia, and since Soviet times, emoluments are especially low, while in Germany it is women teachers who receive the highest emoluments.
In short, in almost all decision-making positions, there are clearly fewer women than men and that, although more women live in Europe than men. Curiously, and only in four countries – Russia, Cyprus, Macedonia and Serbia – there are more female judges, followed by Bosnia-Herzogevina and Hungary.
In the Journalism career, the beginners tend to be almost all women, but after becoming the head of a newspaper, only a third achieve it, that is, it is a position that men usually occupy.
All European women, worldwide, occupy an almost privileged place, as they enjoy good health, and the rate of both death in childbirth and suicide is very low.
Violence against women exists in all societies. In Finland, Denmark and Latvia, a third of women questioned said they had experienced physical violence.
The so-called "Nordic paradox", that is, the reason why it is precisely in some Nordic countries where women suffer more abuses of power, has not yet been able to be clarified.
In some countries the word violence is used to use insults or bad words, however, in others, it makes a clear reference to physical violence.
In Spain – year 2023 – according to official data, there are practically the same number of women deputies as there are deputies in the chamber. And the same thing happens in the autonomous Parliaments, with women outnumbering men in the central Government itself.
In economic power, the presence of women is also eloquent, as well as in the Boards of Directors of large companies, since women represent more than 33%. There are more daycares and less family games. Not because of this, the country is better, but quite the opposite.
