Citizenship: Measuring gender differences among Europe's knowledge workers

EUROSTAT, the European Union's statistical office has just published a report on the differences among Europe’s knowledge workers. The study is illustrated with maps and charts. It shows that in 2004, 50.4% of human resources in science and technology core (HRSTC) in Europe were female, while only 29% of Europe's scientists and engineers were women, 88% of which worked in services. Out of the male scientists and engineers the corresponding proportion was 67%. The unemployment rate is higher with female scientists compared to male ones, even if these differences seem to diminish in the recent years.

At regional level, Poland scores higher with three of its regions with the female HRSTC share higher than 60%, while Portugal and Slovenia also had a high share (61.3% and 60.4% respectively). At the other end of the scale Switzerland, with a share of 34.8%, had the lowest proportion of female HRSTC, followed by Luxembourg (39.6%). Five German regions also had among the lowest HRSTC shares (lower than 40%): Baden-Württemberg, Bayern, Hessen, Nordrhein-Westfalen and Rheinland-Pfalz. Only Mecklenburg-Vorpommern scored higher than 60%.