The Netherlands ranks fifth in the Gender Equality Index 2025 released on 2 December 2025. Sweden ranks first, followed by France, Denmark and Spain. The index, created by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), is considered a measure of progress in gender equality in the European Union. It measures the gender gap between men and women in six areas: work, money, knowledge, time, power and health. The Netherlands has one of the largest wage and pension gaps in the EU.
The Netherlands ranks fifth in the Gender Equality Index 2025 released on 2 December 2025. Sweden ranks first, followed by France, Denmark and Spain. The index, created by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), is considered a measure of progress in gender equality in the European Union. It measures the gender gap between men and women in six areas: work, money, knowledge, time, power and health. The Netherlands has one of the largest wage and pension gaps in the EU.
Please note that due to a new way of measuring, the current index can no longer be compared one-to-one with previous versions of the index. Read more under the heading 'Upgrading the index' at the bottom of this article.
What is the Gender Equality Index?
In 2013, the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) introduced the index as an indicator of gender equality progress in the European Union. The index measures the gender gap between men and women in six domains: work, money, knowledge, time, power and health - using 27 indicators. Countries are scored from zero to 100, with zero representing complete inequality and 100 representing complete equality.
How well does the Netherlands score on gender equality?
The Netherlands scores 69.5 out of 100 points. That is 6.1 points higher than the EU as a whole. Since 2015, the Netherlands' score on the gender equality index has increased by 9.2 points. The trend towards more gender equality is somewhat faster in the Netherlands than the average of all EU countries.
The Netherlands scores best on the domains 'time' and 'health'. On both domains, the Netherlands ranks3rd in the EU. The main reason for the high score on the time domain is that Dutch women spend relatively less time on long-term (informal) care and household tasks and have more leisure time compared to women in the EU as a whole. However, Dutch women do spend proportionally more time caring for young children.
Wage and pension gap almost largest in EU
On the 'money' domain, the Netherlands ranks 26th out of 27 EU countries with a score of 66.2 points, just above Austria. This is mainly because the Netherlands scores lowest on the 'financial resources' indicator (measured as the wage and pension gap). The wage and pension gap in the Netherlands is one of the largest in the EU. In the Netherlands, women earn 32% less than men on an annual basis and receive 36% less in pensions than men. Only in Austria and Malta is the wage gap and pension gap larger than in the Netherlands, respectively.
Progress on power
The biggest progress in the Netherlands is in the 'power' domain with an increase of 14.4 points since 2020. This is mainly due to the increase in the number of women at the top of the corporate sector. Since 1 January 2022, the Netherlands has had a women's quota in place for large companies. Since then, listed companies in the Netherlands must ensure that 33% of the members on the supervisory board must be women.
Gender-based violence
Violence against women is a separate domain in the Gender Equality Index. It does not measure a gender gap, or the difference between men and women. This domain does map how many women experience violence, the impact on women's lives and willingness to share their experiences of violence.
The Netherlands does not have comparable data on gender-based violence on all indicators, so no score can be calculated on this domain in the index. The data that are available (based on the 2021 EU-GBV survey ) show, among other things:
41% of all women in the Netherlands experienced physical and/or sexual violence since the age of 15. This is 10 percentage points higher than the EU average (31%).
Almost half (48%) of young women (18-29 years) have experienced physical and/or sexual violence since the age of 15.
39% of women have experienced health effects from physical and/or sexual violence since age of 15. This percentage of women experiencing health effects from violence is the lowest of all EU countries. For victims of (former) partner violence, it is 60%.
About 29% of women who experienced physical or sexual violence in the past 12 months did not tell anyone, similar to the EU average (31%).
The Netherlands signed the Istanbul Convention in 2015, which has been in force for the Netherlands since 2016. This treaty obliges countries to prevent and combat violence against women and domestic violence in an integral and comprehensive way. Recently, a new report by Grevio, a group of independent experts within the Council of Europe that monitors compliance with the convention, found that the Netherlands still does not meet its international obligations to protect women from violence. One of Grevio's criticisms is that the Netherlands should collect and publish more disaggregated and comparable data on gender-based violence.
Thematic focus: gender stereotypes
The 2025 Gender Equality Index also presents figures on gender stereotypes in the EU. These figures come from various European surveys. The figures show how entrenched gender norms are and still influence our daily lives, choices and opportunities.
Striking results are that almost one in three women (31%) in the Netherlands believe that men are treated better by medical staff (compared to 19% of men). This percentage is much higher than the EU average (22%) and the difference with men is twice as large as in the EU as a whole.
Only 16% of Dutch women and 17% of men agree with the statement 'a man's most important role is to make money'. This is well below the EU average (39% of women and 45% of men). And most Dutch people think it is good for family well-being if fathers and mothers share parental leave equally (75% of women and 70% of men).
Yet almost one in three women and two in five men in the Netherlands think the mother should stay at home with the child and the father should prioritise his work if childcare is not available. Also, about a third of Dutch people agree with the statement that women should make most of the decisions on how to run the household (planning and organising meals, making shopping lists, making doctor's appointments, etc).
Another striking finding is that more than half (51%) of women in the Netherlands and two-thirds of men (66%) find it acceptable for a man to have control over his wife's finances. This is significantly higher than the EU average (26% of women and 46% of men).
These findings reflect the persistent social norm that the mental and physical burden of housework and childcare falls mainly on women, while men are in charge of money. This is reflected in the high inequality between men and women, including financially.
Upgrade of the index
For this latest edition, the index has undergone its first major upgrade since 2013. With the emergence of new issues, policy priorities have shifted to a greater focus on the impact of digitalisation on our lives and the importance of a good work-life balance. The new index includes updated indicators and new data sources with a stronger focus on individual data (rather than at the household level). This is a positive development as it can also measure inequality within households.
EIGE has applied the new methodology to the gender equality index of previous years so that trends can be tracked over time.
