Lisbon, Dec. 2, 2025 (Lusa) - Portugal rose five places in the Gender Equality Index to 10th place, despite obtaining a lower overall score, the best result since the ranking was created in 2010, the European Institute for Gender Equality revealed on Tuesday.
The country scored 63.4 points out of 100, 5.2 points less than in 2024, and matching the average for the 27-member European Union, but managed to climb five places to reach tenth place in the ranking created by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) to assess the evolution of gender equality policies.
The top three places are occupied by Sweden (73.7 points), France (73.4) and Denmark (71.8).
Above Portugal is Luxembourg, with 63.9 points, and below, in 11th place, is Germany, with 63.2 points out of a possible 100.
According to the EIGE, Portugal is part of a group of countries in upward convergence - alongside Denmark, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Finland and Sweden - which "are improving their scores over time, while reducing their differences from the EU average".
The Gender Equality Index tracks countries' progress in six areas: work, money, knowledge, time, power and health, giving ratings on a scale of 0 to 100, as well as monitoring violence against women and intersectional inequalities.
Portugal's ranking is explained in part by its score in the area of health, where it achieved 80.6 points out of a possible 100, followed by money, with 79.9 points.
Even so, the EIGE points to Portugal as one of the countries, alongside Malta, with one of the "greatest gender disparities in terms of years of healthy life, expressed as a percentage of life expectancy, in favour of men", with a 13 percentage point difference between genders.
In the area of power, where it scores lowest with 36.8 points, Portugal is identified as one of nine member states that have implemented gender quotas, by legislative decree, for the boards of directors of companies listed on the stock market.
"France, Italy and, more recently, Spain have a quota of 40%. In Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal, it is 33%," it points out.
On the other hand, with regard to political participation, the EIGE notes that Portugal, like other countries such as Cyprus and Bulgaria, has experienced "some setbacks" with a five-point drop in the presence and proportion of women in parliament compared to 2020.
In contrast, Portugal has contributed to the "two percentage point increase in the proportion of women in EU regional and local parliaments" in recent years, to which it has contributed with a four percentage point increase in its national proportion, together with Italy and Belgium. Denmark (11 percentage points), the Netherlands and Cyprus (six percentage points), Luxembourg and Greece (five percentage points) also contributed to this increase.
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