As the world celebrates International Women’s Day, how does the Netherlands fare in international gender equality rankings?
According to the most recent Global Gender Gap report published by the World Economic Forum, the Netherlands has dropped from 28th to 43rd place in the rankings. In 2008 it was ninth.
The report was a “shock for many,” says Sophie Witteveen, chairwoman of the Women’s Council Netherlands (NVR), the long-standing umbrella organisation for women’s groups.
The low ranking, she said, is mostly due to only two of the index’s metrics – economic and political representation. “We score relatively poorly on these, and the gap that needs to be bridged for equality is large.”
The Global Gender Gap Index compares countries based on women’s economic participation, education, health and political empowerment. The Netherlands no longer has a gender gap in education and the healthcare coverage rate is 96%. But gender differences remain in employment.
Recent data published by Eurostat, the EU statistical office, show that in 2024 the employment rate for women in the Netherlands was almost 80% and for men 87%, resulting in a gender employment gap of seven percentage points compared to an EU average of 10. In 2014, the difference was 11%.
Despite this progress, however, the Netherlands is one of the European countries with the highest share of women who work part-time.
As for career levels, in 2024 the share of women in managerial positions in the Netherlands was around 30%, slightly below the EU average of 35%. This compares with 44% in Sweden, the top European country in this area.
“The high level of education means that even more women than men pursue tertiary education, both globally and in the Netherlands, but this has not yet translated into economic participation and leadership roles for women,” Witteveen says.
“There are barriers preventing women from taking on senior leadership positions in various sectors, particularly in STEM professions.”
The pay gap is another issue, especially in senior roles. Female judges, for example, are currently filing a complaint because they are not getting the same pay as their male colleagues.
The government’s socio-cultural think tank SCP also found that 22% of adult women earn too little to be financially independent and four in ten do not have a paid job, often because they are carers at home.
Pensions
Another critical area for the Netherlands is the pension gap. Across the EU, women’s pensions in 2024 were on average 25% lower than men’s. But in the Netherlands that gap is more than 36%, the second largest after Malta.
“The Netherlands is rather unique in the fact that many women work part-time and thus contribute less to their pension system. The percentage of women working is about 75%, but only highly educated women work full-time (45%) or at least four days a week,” Witteveen says.
In an opinion piece recently published by the Volkskrant, NVR representatives Linda Senden, Mirella Visser and Marica Wismeijer argued that “men have a pension privilege” because the “pension system does not consider part-time workers, who are mostly women.”
The new pension law does not solve the problem but “exacerbates it”, they added, because it places greater weight on contributions made early in careers, when women tend to work fewer paid hours.
Human rights
A UN committee working to remove discrimination against women recently published a report saying that the Netherlands is falling short in protecting women’s human rights.
The CEDAW report called for more government action to address harmful stereotypes and violence against women, ensure that men take on more responsibilities at home, and eliminate discrimination in the labour market.
The committee also raised concern about online hate speech against female politicians and public figures – such as the campaign levelled at former D66 leader Sigrid Kaag – which often discourages them from taking on such roles.
“I feel that in today’s world of rapid technological development, geopolitical conflict and economic uncertainty, gender equality can get lost among other interests,” Witteveen says. “It almost seems as if awareness and the sense of urgency to improve the position of women have declined rather than increased.”
