Hungary has the lowest rate of female scientists and engineers in the EU

Budapest, Hungary – If you ever had the feeling that Hungary’s scientific labs and engineering rooms were disproportionately dominated by men, you were right: Hungary has the lowest rate of female engineers and scientists in the EU, according to data released earlier this month by Eurostat.

Hungary is country with lowest rate of female scientists in the EU

Women accounted for the majority of scientists and engineers in only five EU countries: Lithuania (57%), Bulgaria and Latvia (53%), Portugal (51%) and Denmark (just over 50%). In all the rest of EU member states, women accounted for less than half of the total number of scientists and engineers.

Hungary recorded the lowest rate in the entire bloc (less than 70.000 women compared to a total number of 250.000 scientists and engineers) tied with Luxembourg, with only 25%, followed by Finland (29%) and Germany (33%).

On average, 41% of scientists and engineers are women at the EU level (7.1 million, out of a total of more than 17.6 million). Both Slovakia (39%) and the Czech Republic (40%) also reported slightly lower than average rates, while Poland had the eighth highest rate of female scientists and engineers (49%, or 582.000 women versus 620.000 men) in Europe.

Highest numbers found in U.K., Germany and France

In absolute terms, the countries with the highest number of scientists and engineers (between the ages of 15 to 74 years old) are the U.K. (3.46 million), Germany (3.26 million), France (1.79 million), Spain (1.39 million), Poland (1.20 million) and Italy (1.07 million).

More than half of the total number of female scientists and engineers in the EU are concentrated in only four European countries (U.K., Germany, France and Spain).