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The sciences provide a significant tranche of jobs in Europe — more than 73.8 million people aged from 25 to 64 were employed in the science and technology fields in the EU in 2024.
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A rising number of them were women: the number of female scientists and engineers in the EU increased from 3.4 million in 2008 to 7.9 million in 2024, according to the latest Eurostat data.
Nevertheless, there remain disparities across individual sectors. Women researchers are almost at parity in the higher education sector (44%) and the government sector (45%), but are underrepresented in the business enterprise sector (22%), according to the European Commission’s 2024 She Figures report.
In addition, women only make up 25% of self-employed professionals in science and engineering and ICT.
“Gender segregation remains a challenge in the labour market. However, there is a gradual trend towards reversing this, indicating slow but steady progress towards gender equality,” the She Figures report noted.
Among EU countries, the highest shares of female scientists and engineers were registered in Latvia, at 50.9%, Denmark, at 48.8%, and Estonia, at 47.9%.
By contrast, the lowest levels of representation were recorded in Finland, at 30.7%, Hungary, at 31.7%, and Luxembourg, at 32.4%.
Yet in some parts of Europe, women actually make up a higher proportion of scientists than men. Specifically, there were more of them in 11 regions across Spain, Portugal, Poland, Bulgaria, Sweden and Latvia, according to Eurostat.
For instance, Spain’s Canary Islands saw the highest share of female scientists and engineers, at 58.8%. This was followed by the Portuguese islands of the Azores and Madeira, at 57.3% and 56.4%, respectively.
At the other end of the scale, the smallest proportion of female scientists and engineers was recorded in the Hungarian region of Közép-Magyarország (30.0%), the Finnish region of Manner-Suomi (30.7%), and Sud in Italy (31.1%).
Women born outside the EU are less likely to be employed as scientists and engineers (36%) compared to women born in another EU country (43%) and those born in the EU country where they work (42%).
The lowest proportions of women born outside the EU working as scientists and engineers are in Luxembourg (21%) and in the Netherlands (26%).
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