Women Participation

Iulian Boldea, Dumitru-Mircea Buda (Editors)
CONVERGENT DISCOURSES. Exploring the Contexts of Communication

Arhipelag XXI Press, Tîrgu Mureș, 2016
ISBN: 978-606-8624-17-4
Section: Sociology, Political Sciences and International Relations 8
CHALLENGES IN WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN THE PUBLIC LIFE IN

EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES
Maria-Ana Georgescu1; Emilia Herman2
1,2 Professor PhD, ”Petru Maior” University of Tîrgu Mureș
Abstract: The study is focused on challenges regarding women’s participation in the public life and their
seats in decision making bodies. An analysis and comparison is made regarding women’s presence in these
domains in Romania and in the EU countries. The major factors of policy making - the vision and
perspective, need to be supported by highlighting the gender realities in the public life. Our analysis aims to
raise awareness among the decision factors upon the measures needed to improve the women's activism,
mainly on the political arena.
Keywords: women, public life, decision making positions, gender gap, political empowerment.
1. Argument
The mentality changes all over the world regarding gender contribution to social life are
related with ways to promote women representing just over half of the population, to attend
economic and public positions, to gain economic independence and public visibility.
Analysing the civil society organizations’ (CSO) discourse related to gender equality, it can
be noticed that it underlines “women’s rights as human rights which are indeed fundamental to
societal growth and well-being” and the need to secure gender equality in leadership roles (Chaney,
2016, p.288). Comparing government discourse and the CSOs’, some authors make a distinction –
the government discourse can be characterized by an overriding concern with public administration
whereas CSOs’ emphasis the citizen protection and empowerment (Idem, p.287).
There are several organizations which fight to sustain the feminine cause so as to become
open and balanced societies, but the engine of the society merges all these standpoints and changes
their meaning according to the cultural, economic and general political background (Popa, Gavriliu,
2015, p.1205).
From the perspective of the need of personal fulfilment, general and human, women, like in
the case of men, have the possibility to accede to multiple success ways. Yet, in order to achieve
this they have to be become independent, to affirm their identity without being satisfied with living
through and for the others (Lips, 2001).
International Labour Office’s Resource guide on gender issues points out that “There is
ample evidence that improving women’s employment prospects can have not only positive effects
ISBN: 978-606-8624-17-4
on women’s economic empowerment, but engender broader economic and social benefits as well.
Yet, gender concerns have not been fully integrated with mainstream policies” (ILO, 2014).
Some authors state that despite major gains over the last century, gender inequality is still
widespread, suggesting that the goals fostered by feminisms remain relevant (Swirsky & Angelone,
2015). Namely on the political arena, women's access to senior positions is difficult. The Handbook
on promoting women’s participation in political parties states that „The extent of women’s
representation in elected office in any given country is determined by a wide range of factors,
including the general progress towards achieving equality of rights and opportunities among women
and men in public and private spheres, the choice of political and electoral systems, and the level of
institutionalization of – and transparency in – decision-making processes within political parties”
(OSCE/ODIHR, 2014). The document underlines that political parties are often referred to as the
“gatekeepers” of women’s political participation.
In the particular case of Romania, the year 2000 brought for the gender literature an un-
precedent development (Popa, Gavriliu, 2015, p.1201).
The objectives of our paper are to present the realities regarding gender balance in the
public life of the European countries, in order to change and improve women’s activism. We
present arguments that reinforce claims in recent studies on gender issues in Romania, regarding the
more reduced access to the management positions for the female employees, problem that remain of
actuality (Istrate, Bănică, 2015, p.324).
The methodology used is the empirical approach and secondary analysis of statistical data
available and related to presence of women in decision making positions and in top levels of the
judiciary, global gender gap. The series of data that we have selected starts in 2008, when the
economic crisis was triggered and stops with the years 2014-2015, until official data are published.
2. Women in Public Life and Decision Making Positions
In the context mentioned above, one would expect an improvement in terms of using
women’s talents effectively in different domains.
As regards female membership of the economic boards (highest decision-making body) of
the largest publicly quoted companies, the situation is as follows: in 2008, women represented, on
average, only 11% of these board members at EU-28 level. The percentage reached 23% in 2015,
representing a more than double increase.
ISBN: 978-606-8624-17-4
Figure 1. Share of women members of the highest decision-making body

of the largest companies in each country, 2008-2015
(Own processing based on EC 2016)
In our country, unlike European trend, the situation remained stationary (as shown in Fig. 1),
respectively in both 2008 and 2015, female participation is the same, 12%.
On the political arena, women's situation shows large disparities. It is presented in the same figure
(see Fig.2) their presence in national parliaments and in governments - senior ministers.
The average percentage of female members of national parliaments, in EU-28, was 23% in
2008 and 28% in 2015. In Romania, Hungary and Malta, their presence was precarious; it
represented only 10% in 2008 and 12% in 2015, in our country.
Figure 2. Share of women in national parliaments and national governments (senior

ministers), in 2008-2015
ISBN: 978-606-8624-17-4
Among senior ministers of national governments (ministers with a seat in the cabinet), the
share of women, at EU-28 level, was 27% in 2008 and the same in 2015. In Romania, the situation
has improved substantially: at incredible value of 0% in 2008, the percentage has risen above the
European average, reaching 35%. Greece, Hungary and Slovakia were three exceptions in 2015
because they had no woman senior minister in the government. In the share of women
representatives in the European Parliament, Romania ranks 7 to the bottom (see Fig.3).
Figure 3. Share of women in European parliament, 2015

With a share of 28%, our country has 9 percentage points below the European Union
average, which is 37%. Malta is in first place with 67% women, but this place was not difficult to
achieve, knowing it has only 6 members in the European Parliament.
A precarious situation exists in terms of women's representation in regional assemblies in
several countries, as Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Italy, with a share lower than 20%; in Czech
Republic and Greece, the share is 20% in 2015 (Fig.4).
Figure 4. Share of women in regional assemblies (president and members), EU 20 countries,

2008-2015
ISBN: 978-606-8624-17-4

In 2008, one can notice that in five countries there was no female president of regional
assemblies: Czech Republic, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Slovakia. In 2015, four countries had no
female president of regional assemblies: Belgium, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. It seems that, at
regional level, Romania is constantly failing to promote women.
An image of the decision-making position on the administrative level (non-political) is given in
the 2016 Report of The National Agency for Equal Opportunities between Women and Men
(ANES). The decision-making levels include the following positions:
• Decisional level 1: Secretary General, Deputy Secretary General, Director General and
Deputy Director-General.
• Decisional level 2: Director and Deputy Director.
Table 1. The share of women in administration decisional levels, in 2014 and 2015
Year 2014 Year 2015
Decisional level 1 Decisional level 2 Decisional level 1 Decisional level 2
Women( Men(% Women( Men(% Women( Men(% Women( Men(%
%) ) %) ) %) ) %) )
EU-28 31 69 40 60 34 66 40 60
Romani 46 54 57 43 45 55 56 44
a
Source: ANES 2016
The situation of Romania in the online database of the European Commission is provided
for the last two years (Table 1). As can be seen, the percentage of Romanian women at the
administrative level decision-making positions, both Level 1 and Level 2, is higher than the EU
average, for each of the two years.
According to a typology that classifies ministers into 4 categories – BEIS, there are the following
functions: B – Basic functions, E – Economic, I – Infrastructure, S – Sociocultural.
The gender balance according to the BEIS typology, in our country, is found in Table 2.
Table 2. Romania’s ranking in the European Commission Database 2014

Position in the ranking in EU Member States
Level 1 administrators Level 2 administrators
General 2 2
Basic functions 9 2
Economic 4 3
Infrastructure 4 9
Socio-cultural 7 8
Source: ANES 2016
In the central public administration of Romania, the positioning of women is distributed in a
much more balanced way compared with other fields and our country occupies leading places in the
hierarchy.
ISBN: 978-606-8624-17-4
Regarding the gender balance in decision-making position in central public administration,

Romania “has met the quantitative indicator of the Theory of Critical Mass which, in the opinion of
some analysts, is of 40% for each sex” (ANES 2016, p.12). The situation (See Tables 1 and 2)
reflects the concern of the Romanian Government to promote women.
3. Women in Top Levels of the Judiciary
As regards Judges of supreme courts by gender Romania is well situated (see Fig.5). The
gender balance is better in the supreme courts at national level. It should be mentioned that this is
due to the larger proportions of women amongst senior judges. Also we can note that in Romania
women are very well represented: 75% in 2008 and 84% in 2015. In 2015, Romania has the first
place in the percentage of women in the Supreme Court of Justice.
Figure 5. Share of women in Judges of supreme courts, in EU, 2008-2015

Across Europe, there are nine countries where there is a good gender balance (at least 40%
of each gender) amongst Supreme Court judges in 2015 and there is a single case of real imbalance,
with less that 10% women, in the UK.
4. The Global Gender Gap Index

According to World Economic Forum (2015) through The Global Gender Gap (GGG) Index
is measured one important aspect of gender equality, respectively „the relative gaps between
women and men across four key areas: health, education, economy and politics.” This index is
based on four fundamental categories (subindexes): Economic Participation and Opportunity,
Educational Attainment, Health and Survival and Political Empowerment. The highest possible
score is 1, which means equality and the lowest possible score is 0, which means inequality.
In 2015, the Global Gender Gap Index was calculated for 145 countries, and published by
World Economic Forum. Of the 28 EU states, 19 countries are in the top 50 (out of 145 countries).
Romania ranks 77 out of 145 countries and on the 22-nd place in EU-28, with a score of 0.691, over
the Czech Republic, Greece, Slovakia, Hungary, Cyprus and Malta (see Fig.6).
ISBN: 978-606-8624-17-4
In the Balkan countries, although the legislation related to gender discrimination problems has been
aligned to the Community one, the operating stereotype forms of the societies can overcome the
legal normality (Tudora et al., 2015, p.663)
Figure 6. Global Gender Gap Index in EU-28, 2015

(Own processing based on WEF 2015)
The worst sub-index in our country is the Political Empowerment (a score of 0.090, ranks
Romania 113/145), followed by Economic Participation and Opportunity (0.693 score, rank 55/145
countries).
From the perspective of Health and Survival sub-index, Romania ranks 42 (0.979).
Educational Attainment sub-index positioned Romania on the place 64/145 Countries (0.994) and
on the 22-nd place of 28 in the EU.
As Finland is the leader country in the GGG hierarchy, we made a comparison between this
and Romania on the four pillars of the index (see Fig.7).
Figure 7. Four pillars - The Global Gender Gap Index for Romania and EU leader, in 2015
(Own processing based on WEF 2015)
ISBN: 978-606-8624-17-4
As shown in Figure 7, Romania has two strong pillars, score almost 1, like Finland,
respectively Educational Attainment pillar and Health and survival, which means gender equality.
Conversely, if the economic pillar is almost similar to that of the country leader (score 7 for
Romania and score 8 for Finland), instead, political pillar Empowerment is at 0.09 level, which
means huge gender inequality in our country. This situation seems to prove the following statement:
“Barriers such as direct or indirect gender-based discrimination in party procedures and practices, a
lack of gender-sensitivity in candidate selection and outreach, or an inequitable distribution of party
resources among candidates are some of the complex challenges faced by women within political
parties and, in particular, by women candidates in their electoral campaigns” (OSCE/ODIHR,
2014).
Conclusions
The changes regarding the gender stereotypes in our country deal with social management
measures to be taken for improving women's participation in the public life and in the decision
making process, by adopting policies specifically designed to ease women's access to all areas of
social and political life, but especially in those where the gender balance is totally unfavorable to
them.
As positive aspects, we underline that Romanian women are well represented in top levels
of non political, administrative positions – decision level 1 and 2 - the percentage recorded by
Romania being superior than the average percentage recorded in EU; that Romanian women occupy
significantly more seats in the Supreme Court of Justice, our country being a leader in this regard.
Also, two of the pillars of General Gender Gap, namely Survival and Health and Educational
attainment, places Romania in the first half of the 145 countries surveyed.
Negative aspects are related to women's participation in public decision making on the
political arena - it is very poor, placing Romania on a low position in some hierarchies such as:
share of women in national parliaments, share of women in regional assemblies (president and
members). We noticed that there are in Romania aspects regarding female participation, opposite
with the European trend, such as keeping the same share of women of the highest decision-making
body in companies (see Fig.1), rather than increasing it.
The worst sub-index of the Romanian Global Gender Gap Index is the Political
Empowerment, that can be improved by adopting measures that force political parties to promote
women in a share of at least 30% on eligible positions, in order to have access to public life. This is
the major challenge for the Romanian gender’s imbalance – the participation on the political arena.
References
Agenţia Naţională pentru Egalitatea de Şanse între Femei şi Bărbaţi – ANES [National
Agency for Equal Opportunities Between Women and Man] (2016). Romania's position in the
online database of the European Commission on gender balance in decision-making positions in
public administration Comparative Analysis 2014 – 2015. Available at:
http://www.mmuncii.ro/j33/index.php/ro/2014-domenii/egalitate-de-sanse-intre-femei-si-
barbati/4354-2016-04-01-anes-analiza. Accessed: 18.04.2016.
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Chaney, P. (2016). Civil Society and Gender Mainstream: Empirical Evidence and Theory-
Building from Twelve Post-Conflict Countries 2005-15. World Development Vol.83, pp.280-294.
European Comission – EC (2016). Database Gender balance in decision-making, Available
at: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/gender-decision-making/database/index_en.htm
Accessed: 16.04.2016.
Eurostat Database (2016). Your key to European statistics. Available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat. Accessed: 5.04.2016.
International Labour Office - ILO (2014) Resource guide on gender issues in employment
and labour market policies: working towards women’s economic empowerment and gender
equality. Available at: http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---
ed_emp/documents/instructionalmaterial/wcms_243015.pdf Accessed: 25.09.2016.
Istrate, M., Banica, A. (2015). Female labour force in the Romanian urban environment:
structures, relations, segregation indexes. Procedia Economics and Finance, 20, p.316-325.
Lips, H. (2001). Sex and Gender, London –Toronto: Mayfield Publishing Company.
OSCE/ODIHR (2014). Handbook on promoting women’s participation in political parties,
Available at: http://www.osce.org/odihr/120877?download=true Accessed: 24.09.2016.
Popa, D., Gavriliu, D. (2015). Gender representation and Digital Media. Procedia – Social
and Behavioral Sciences, 180, p.1199-1206.
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feminism mean to contemporary women?, Journal of Gender Studies,
DOI:10.1080/09589236.2015.1008429 Available at:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2015.1008429 Accessed: 24.09.2016.
Tudora, D., Banica, A., Istrate, M. (2015). Evaluation of gender disparities from the Balkan
countries. Procedia Economics and Finance, 20, p.654-664.
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Iulian Boldea, Dumitru-Mircea Buda (Editors)

CONVERGENT DISCOURSES. Exploring the Contexts of Communication

CHALLENGES IN WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN THE PUBLIC LIFE IN

Maria-Ana Georgescu1; Emilia Herman2

1,2 Professor PhD, ”Petru Maior” University of Tîrgu Mureș

2. Women in Public Life and Decision Making Positions

Figure 1. Share of women members of the highest decision-making body

Figure 2. Share of women in national parliaments and national governments (senior

Figure 3. Share of women in European parliament, 2015

Figure 4. Share of women in regional assemblies (president and members), EU 20 countries,

(Own processing based on EC 2016)

Table 2. Romania’s ranking in the European Commission Database 2014

Regarding the gender balance in decision-making position in central public administration,

Figure 5. Share of women in Judges of supreme courts, in EU, 2008-2015

4. The Global Gender Gap Index

Figure 6. Global Gender Gap Index in EU-28, 2015

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