"The top performing country is Sweden with a score of 82.6 (of 100), while Greece moved to the bottom with 50 points. The award for the most improved country goes to Italy, which made a big leap and gained 12.9 points to place itself at rank 14 on the ladder," EIGE stresses in its gender equality report for 2017.
In Croatia, the gender equality index is 53.1 points. Of the EU countries, Greece, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia have poorer scores than Croatia.
The ranking is topped by Sweden, which is followed by Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands.
The average European score is 66.2.
The Gender Equality Index is a tool to measure the progress of gender equality in the EU, developed by EIGE.
The Index has six core domains - work, money, knowledge, time, power and health – and two satellite domains: violence against women and intersecting inequalities. It gives more visibility to areas that need improvement and ultimately supports policy makers to design more effective gender equality measures, EIGE says on its website.
Croatia scores well in terms of health (83.3), money (69.9) and work (69.4), but it scores poorly in terms of power (28.5).
The category of health measures the health status, healthy living and access to healthcare, the category of work measures to what extent men and women have equal access to employment and good working conditions, while the category of money measures access to financial resources and the equality of pay for both sexes.
When it comes to the category of power, where Croatia's score is a mere 28.5, the Institute underlines that most progress in the EU was achieved exactly in that category.
The category of power measures equality in decision-making on the political, economic and social fronts. This also includes the number of women in the parliament and state and local governments, on big companies' management boards and in the media, research institutions and sports.
"The biggest boost for gender equality over the last ten years has been in the area of decision-making, especially in the private sector. This shows that political and public pressure can work and it did well to bring change on private company boards. Although gender equality in decision-making improved by nearly 10 points over the past decade to reach 48.5, it still has the lowest score. This largely reflects the uneven representation of women and men in politics and marks a democratic deficit in EU governance," says EIGE.
Progress has been made but it is too slow
Even though EIGE stresses that some progress has been made in the last ten years, it notes that the EU is far from a gender-equal society.
"We are moving forward but overall progress is very slow. The EU's score is just four points higher than ten years ago, now 66.2 out of 100," says the Institute.
"We are still a long way off from reaching a gender-equal society and all countries in the European Union have room to improve. In some areas, the gaps are even bigger than ten years ago. Our Gender Equality Index clearly shows whether government policies are matching the specific needs of women and men and whether they are working or not," said EIGE Director Virginija Langbakk.
Vera Jourova, Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, noted that "equality is not about making women more like men, but about creating an environment where both sexes can have equal choices and fully participate in social, work and family life."
The EIGE index reveals lack of progress in 12 countries when it comes to the time use of women and men.
Only every third man engages daily in cooking and housework, compared to almost every woman (79%).
In Croatia the situation is even worse - only 11.9% of men engage daily in cooking and housework.