Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is a measure of economic production, which takes the entire output of a national economy during a year and divides it by the population of that country. In the European Union, Luxembourg, Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Austria come out on top as the countries which produced the most per capita in 2024. Europe's richest countries benefit from multinational companies Many criticisms have been made of using GDP per capita as away to judge a country's economic wealth in recent years, as global capital flows have come to distort the statistics and to give a warped impression of different countries' wealth. This is most notably the case for Ireland and for Luxembourg, which while certainly high-income countries, have experienced dramatic booms in their GDP over the past two decades due to the accounting practices of the large multinational corporations which have their European headquarters in these member states, such as Facebook and Apple in Dublin, and Amazon in Luxembourg. Will the poorest countries converge towards the EU average? At the bottom of the list, two of the most recent member states of the EU, Romania and Bulgaria, come last in terms of GDP per capita. Whether these countries will be able to capitalize on their relatively low-wages to spur economic growth and experience the convergence towards the older member states of the union shown by countries such as Estonia, Czechia, and Lithuania, remains a pressing issue for these poorer member states.
As of 2025, there are **** official candidate countries for membership in the European Union, as well as Kosovo identified by the European Commission as a potential future candidate. A key element of the Copenhagen Criteria - the conditions which must be fulfilled to join the EU - is the existence of a functioning market economy in the candidate country, with the ability of the country to handle the strong competition and economic pressures which come with joining the European Single Market. While the political and administrative/institutional criteria have been considered the key stumbling block which has prevented the current candidate countries from progressing towards full membership, the current state of the economies of candidate countries is also a cause for concern. According to the most recently available data, all candidate countries have lower GDP per capita than even the poorest EU member state, Bulgaria. Ukraine, the newest candidate country, which was granted candidate status by the EU in response to Russia's invasion of the country in 2022, is the poorest candidate country, as measured by GDP per capita. This represents a serious issue, as the EU has never incorporated a country which is so far from the average economic standards of the Union. On the other hand, the chance to join the EU could provide an economic boost to Ukraine, or any other candidate country, as can be seen with the fast rising GDP per capita of countries which have joined the EU since 2004, such as Czechia, Hungary, and Poland.
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This dataset provides values for GDP PER CAPITA PPP reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.
The European Union's member states have widely differing experiences when it comes to corruption and the rule of law. While some states such as Denmark and Finland show extremely low levels of corruption, others find the issue to be one of the key challenges facing their countries. For Malta, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary, the issue of domestic corruption is particularly severe, as they are ranked as the bottom five member states in Transparency International's corruption perceptions index in 2024. In these EU member states, officials in public administration or the justice system are more likely to be swayed by bribes and citizens' civil and political liberties are less likely to be respected. Croatia, Romania, and Bulgaria have seen a slight increase in their scores over the past decade, while for Hungary and Malta the situation with corruption has significantly deteriorated. Hungary in particular has seen its score fall from 51 in 2015 to only 41 in 2024, as the country's illiberal Prime Minister Viktor Orban has implemented reforms to the media, judiciary, and political system which have substantially worsened corruption.
With a Gross Domestic Product of over 4.18 trillion Euros, the German economy was by far the largest in Europe in 2023. The similarly sized economies of the United Kingdom and France were the second and third largest economies in Europe during this year, followed by Italy and Spain. The smallest economy in this statistic is that of the small Balkan nation of Montenegro, which had a GDP of 5.7 billion Euros. In this year, the combined GDP of the 27 member states that compose the European Union amounted to approximately 17.1 trillion Euros. The big five Germany’s economy has consistently had the largest economy in Europe since 1980, even before the reunification of West and East Germany. The United Kingdom, by contrast, has had mixed fortunes during the same period and had a smaller economy than Italy in the late 1980s. The UK also suffered more than the other major economies during the recession of the late 2000s, meaning the French economy was the second largest on the continent for some time afterward. The Spanish economy was continually the fifth-largest in Europe in this 38-year period, and from 2004 onwards, has been worth more than one trillion Euros. The smallest GDP, the highest economic growth in Europe Despite having the smallerst GDP of Europe, Montenegro emerged as the fastest growing economy in the continent, achieving an impressive annual growth rate of 4.5 percent, surpassing Turkey's growth rate of 4 percent. Overall,this Balkan nation has shown a remarkable economic recovery since the 2010 financial crisis, with its GDP projected to grow by 28.71 percent between 2024 and 2029. Contributing to this positive trend are successful tourism seasons in recent years, along with increased private consumption and rising imports. Europe's economic stagnation Malta, Albania, Iceland, and Croatia were among the countries reporting some of the highest growth rates this year. However, Europe's overall performance reflected a general slowdown in growth compared to the trend seen in 2021, during the post-pandemic recovery. Estonia experienced the sharpest negative growth in 2023, with its economy shrinking by 2.3% compared to 2022, primarily due to the negative impact of sanctions placed on its large neighbor, Russia. Other nations, including Sweden, Germany, and Finland, also recorded slight negative growth.
Attitudes towards the European Union. Globalisation. Assessment of the economic and financial crisis, and the EU policy.
Topics: 1. Standard trends and attitudes towards the EU: general life satisfaction; assessment of the national and the European economic situation; assessment of the world economic situation; assessment of the personal job situation and the financial situation of the own household; assessment of the situation on the labour market in the own country and the situation in the environment in the own country; assessment of the national situation compared to the average of the European Union countries regarding the economic situation, the situation on the labour market, cost of living, energy prices, quality of life, and the situation of the environment; future expectations in the above fields; most important problems of the country; EU membership of the own country is a good thing; benefits from the own country’s membership in the EU; development of the own country, the EU, and the USA in the right direction; trust in institutions (media, internet, army, national legal system, political parties, national government, national parliament, European Union, United Nations, regional or local authorities, and NATO); positive or negative image of the EU; EU´s main features; knowledge test on the EU institutions: European Parliament, European Commission, Council of the European Union, European Central Bank; confidence in these institutions; attitude towards a European Monetary Union; attitude towards the enlargement of the EU; assessment of the speed of building Europe; the EU´s most important issues; knowledge test about the EU: number of member states, result of the Irish referendum; membership of Switzerland (Split A) and Iceland (Split B) in the EU; satisfaction with the democracy in the own country and in the EU; understanding of the processes of the EU; assessment regarding the consideration of national interests in the EU; assessment of the EU´s growth speed; citizens of different countries share more common characteristics than differences; lack of ideas for Europe; the EU must meet the global challenges.
The EU, the world, and globalisation: most important factors for the global influence of a country or of a group of countries; assignment of these factors to the EU; attitude towards globalisation (scale: opportunity for economic growth, increasing social inequalities, demand for global governance, identical interests of the USA and the EU in dealing with globalisation, protects from price increases, peacekeeping, threat to national culture, is profitable only for large companies but not for the citizens, leads to foreign investment in the own country, promotes the development of poorer countries, leading to more openness to other cultures, the EU has sufficient power to defend their economic interests, EU protects its citizens from the negative effects of globalisation (Split A) or enables European citizens to better benefit from the positive effects of globalisation (Split B); globalisation as an opportunity or as a threat to the national economy; comparison of the performance of the European economy with the American, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Russian and Brazilian economy; preferred orientation of the national society to meet global challenges.
Economic and financial crisis: expected worsening or recovery of the economic crisis; expected development of the individual financial situation of the household in the next months; most important actors to combat the crisis; positive or negative associations with the following terms (image): company, welfare state, competitiveness, free trade, protectionism, globalisation, liberalisation, trade union, reforms, public administration, flexibility, competition, security, and solidarity; attitude towards a free enterprise economy (scale: too strong intervention of the state in the lives of the individuals, economic growth prior to environmental protection (Split A) or environmental protection prior to economic growth (Split B), free competition is a guarantee of prosperity); attitude towards a reduction of the value of material possessions; approval of increased development of new technologies; impression of loss of personal purchasing power; expected change in the living conditions of future generations; suspected improvement of the lives of the young generation in the country by emigrating to another country; most important personal values; values that represent best the EU.
Subsidiarity: European, national or local level has the most impact on the own living conditions; sufficient consideration of regional interests in decisions of the European Union.
Only in EU 27 was asked: awareness of the current Swedish presidency of the EU; awareness of the change of presidency to Spain; optimism for the future of the EU; better protection against the economic crisis by maintaining the old currency; mitigation of the negative impact of the...
For most of the 20th century, Ireland stood out as one of the poorest countries in Western Europe, not experience the same post-war boom in prosperity that was felt by virtually all other countries in the region. At the onset of the 1973-1975 Recession, Ireland's GDP per capita was less than 60 percent of GDP per capita in the European Union and less than a quarter of GDP per capita in the U.S. Catching up in the 1980s By the 1980s, a wave of foreign investment saw Ireland's export sector grow exponentially, and between 1975 and 1990, Ireland had the second-fastest growth of exports in the world (behind Japan). Additionally, as Ireland joined the European Communities in 1973, it became more integrated into the European economy; before 1973, around three-quarters of Ireland's exports went to the United Kingdom, but this fell to one-third by the 1990s. Ireland's period of industrialization was relatively short in comparison to its neighbors, as it transitioned from an agriculture-based economy to a producer of high-tech products and services. Ireland's low tax rate and other incentives also attracted many American tech companies in the 1980s, such as Apple, Intel, and Microsoft, who were keen on establishing a presence in the European Union. The Celtic Tiger Named after the Four Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan), which experienced rapid economic growth in the 1970s and 1980s, the period of prosperity between the 1990s and 2000s in Ireland has been dubbed the "Celtic Tiger." Over this time, Ireland's GDP per capita grew to exceed the average in the EU by 10 percent in 2000, and it would eventually surpass that of the U.S. in 2003. Ireland was severely impacted by the financial crisis of 2008 due to the instability of its property sector and extensive lending by banks, and it was the first European economy to go into recession. By the late 2010s, most sectors of the economy had returned to pre-recession levels, and today, Ireland's GDP per capita remains among the top in the world, second in the EU only to Luxembourg.
Since the early 1970s the European Commission´s Standard & Special Eurobarometer are regularly monitoring the public opinion in the European Union member countries. Principal investigators are the Directorate-General Communication and on occasion other departments of the European Commission or the European Parliament. Over time, candidate and accession countries were included in the Standard Eurobarometer Series. Selected questions or modules may not have been surveyed in each sample. Please consult the basic questionnaire for more information on country filter instructions or other questionnaire routing filters. In this study the following modules are included: 1. Standard indicators on living conditions and expectations, 2. European Social Fund (ESF), 3. Civil justice and commercial legal proceedings in the member states and the EU, 4. Attitudes towards development aid, 5. Africa: problems, image and relation to the EU, 6. Risk issues regarding food.
Topics: 1. Standard indicators on living conditions and expectations: life satisfaction; assessment of the current situation in different areas (personal living area, national health care, retirement benefits, unemployment benefits, cost of living, relations between people of different culture, religion or nationality, dealing with inequality and poverty, affordable energy, affordable housing functioning public administration, national economic conditions, personal job situation and financial situation and national employment situation); expected development of the personal life situation in general and in the areas mentioned above and compared to the period five years ago.
European Social Fund (ESF): most important general issues and based on social policy and employment policy, which the European Union should address as a priority; preference for the solution of social issues for the whole EU or focus on the poorest regions and countries of the EU; awareness of the European Social Fund (ESF).
Civil justice and commercial legal proceedings in the member states and the EU: own involvement in civil or commercial legal proceedings with a person or a company from an EU Member State and from a non EU country; difficulty to access civil justice in another EU Member State; need for additional measures to support citizens in obtaining their rights; type of personal experience in civil or commercial legal proceedings abroad (based on marriage, children or contractual disputes); non-EU country in which the respondent had personal experience in civil or commercial proceeding; most important obstacles to start legal proceedings in another EU member State; perceived difficulties in the enforcement of a positive judgment for the respondent in another EU country; perceived encouragement by a judicial declaration (exequatur) to institute legal proceedings against a person in another EU country; importance of EU measures to simplify the procedures for enforcing court decisions in another country; knowledge of the procedure introduced by the EU to recover cross-border small claims; source of information about this process; knowledge of the European order for payment procedure (European Payment Order); source of information about this process; knowledge of common standards in the EU to qualify for legal aid (Cross-Border Civil Case); source of information on this standard; preferred EU measures for cross-border family law areas (international distinctions, control of financial matters in connection with a marriage, control of financial matters for unmarried but officially recognized couple); attitude towards the automaticall validity of an agreement on the distribution of the belongings of a divorcing couple in all other EU member states; personal experience with the presentation of documents such as birth certificate, marriage certificate or death certificate in another EU country; need to submit a translation or legalization of this document; attitude towards a universal recognition of civil status documents in the EU; preference for an automatic recognition of documents or the issuance of standard formats or improvement of mechanism for translating these documents; attitude towards general system for the recognition of adoptions.
Attitudes towards development aid: biggest challenges facing developing countries; attitude towards development aid; personal involvement in development aid (donations or volunteer activities); preference for international organizations or individual countries as best actors for development aid; attitude towards changes in the scope of official development aid and towards a cooperation of the EU Member States in development aid; preferred political guidelines for the alignment of development aid.
Africa / problems, image and relation to the EU: expected increase in the importance of Africa as a partner for the EU; most important areas of cooperation between the EU and Africa; most important problems for African countries to...
This round of Eurobarometer surveys queried respondents on standard Eurobarometer measures such as public awareness of and attitudes toward the European Union (EU), and also focused on personal health issues, the Common European Currency, energy questions, development aid, and the rights of EU citizens. Respondents were asked if they thought exposure to the sun was good or bad for their health, how best to protect themselves from the sun, what type of skin, eye, and hair color they had, and what information they had received about the "Europe Against Cancer" campaign. In regard to the Common European Currency, they provided their attitudes toward having one currency for all member states, and commented on how well-informed they were about this issue, if they knew about the conditions that member countries must meet in order to join the European Economic and Monetary Union, if their own country would be able to meet the requirements and what the consequences would be if it did not, when euro coins and notes might be introduced, how the introduction of the single currency should proceed, and how it would affect economic policies and transactions. Questions about energy use and consumption covered problems that could affect the environment, if respondents had made attempts to conserve energy use in recent years and how they might do so in the future, how effective public bodies were in saving energy, and whether energy investment decisions should be left to market forces or to public bodies. Views regarding the availability and cost of energy resources over the next ten years, the importance of nuclear energy, the role of taxes in energy consumption, and whether public or private transportation should be favored in traffic planning decisions were also elicited. A battery of questions about developing countries focused on whether respondents thought there was a need to help poorer countries to develop, whether their own governments provided development aid, whether the European Commission provided such aid and if so, how much, and whether such aid should be increased or decreased. Other questions probed for opinions on whether developing countries used aid money to purchase goods from the EU, whether the Community's aid should be made better known, and how profitable it was to invest in developing countries. Respondents were also asked if they thought Europe, the United States, or Japan was best placed to help poor people, where Europe's exports were sent, if development aid helped to solve certain social and economic problems, and if they felt they received accurate accounts about developing countries from newspapers and television news programs. A few questions also focused on perceptions of the rights of citizens of the EU and where information could be located about such rights. Citizens from Germany, Spain, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom were asked about their attitudes toward other EU countries, which countries should join the Monetary Union, how important the introduction of the single currency by January 1, 1999, was, and how likely it was that the deadline would be met. Demographic items included age, gender, marital status, household size, monthly income, education, size of community, region, and occupation.
The statistic reflects the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in member states of the European Union in November 2024. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Spain in November 2024 was 11.2 percent.The unemployment rate represents the share of the unemployed in all potential employees available to the job market. Unemployment rates in the EU The unemployment rate is an important measure of a country or region’s economic health, and despite unemployment levels in the European Union falling slightly from a peak in early 2013 , they remain high, especially in comparison to what the rates were before the worldwide recession started in 2008. This confirms the continuing stagnation in European markets, which hits young job seekers particularly hard as they struggle to compete against older, more experienced workers for a job, suffering under jobless rates twice as high as general unemployment. Some companies, such as Microsoft and Fujitsu, have created thousands of jobs in some of the countries which have particularly dire unemployment rates, creating a beacon of hope. However, some industries such as information technology, face the conundrum of a deficit of qualified workers in the local unemployed work force, and have to hire workers from abroad instead of helping decrease the local unemployment rates. This skills mismatch has no quick solution, as workers require time for retraining to fill the openings in the growing science-, technology-, or engineering-based jobs, and too few students choose degrees that would help them obtain these positions. Worldwide unemployment also remains high, with the rates being worst in the Middle East and North Africa. Estimates by the International Labour Organization predict that the problem will stabilize in coming years, but not improve until at least 2017.
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To help achieve our goal of eradicating poverty and hunger in the world’s poorest countries, the Government allocates significant funding to our aid programme. Most of this funding is managed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade through Irish Aid. Our Irish Aid 2016 Annual Report gives a detailed analysis of how and where this money is spent.
This is the address to the Board of Governors, delivered by Mr. James D. Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank. It was indicated that the development community has confirmed the Millennium Development Goals as our framework for action. Our thinking and action must be local, regional, and global, and we must work and act together. First and foremost, developing country leaders have asserted that the responsibility for the future of their countries is in their hands. They know that they must drive their development and create a constructive environment to encourage growth that is equitable and just for poor people, indeed for all people. This growth must be based on sound social and economic policies. To create the conditions for entrepreneurship, productivity, and jobs, the developing countries must invest in health and education, including early childhood education. These countries must also invest in effective legal and judicial systems; clear tax and regulatory frameworks implemented in approaches that fight corruption at all levels; and strong and well-regulated financial systems. It was also indicated that the Bank must focus on implementation of our promises to work toward the Millennium Development Goals. Our operations must become more transparent. We must support developing countries to better build their capacity. We must act now on our promises. We must deliver on them with a sense of urgency. This is our responsibility and our destiny.
In 1950, at the end of the recovery period that followed the Second World War, GDP per capita across the Eastern Bloc varied greatly by country. Czechoslovakia, the most industrialized country in the Bloc after East Germany, had a GDP per capita that was 69 percent of the rate across Western European** countries. In contrast, Romania's GDP per capita was less than a quarter of the Western European average in 1950. 1950-1989 Generally speaking, Eastern European economies grew faster and made gains on those of the west (not including Mediterranean region) in the 1950s and 1960s, however, a series of recessions and increasing debts meant that this gap widened in the 1970s and 1980s. By 1989, as communism in Europe came to an end, the difference between overall GDP per capita in the Eastern and Western Blocs returned to a similar rate as in 1950, although it varied by country. The Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, three of the larger economies of those given, had a lower share of western GDP per capita in 1989 than in 1950, while the smaller economies of the Balkans saw an increase. 1989-2000 Between 1989 and 2000, the European Union's GDP per capita grew faster than in the former Eastern Bloc countries. However, the end of communism did negatively impact EU economies in the early 1990s. Poland was the only Eastern Bloc country to make gains on the west in these years, although this was more to do with its poor economy in the 1980s. The former-Soviet states, in particular, saw GDP per capita drop below one-quarter of the European Union's rate over this decade, as post-Soviet economic recovery did not realistically begin until the late 1990s.
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Poverty and social exclusion, social services, climate change, and the national economic situation and statistics.
Topics: 1. Poverty and social exclusion: own life satisfaction (scale); satisfaction with family life, health, job, and satisfaction with standard of living (scale); personal definition of poverty; incidence of poverty in the own country; estimated proportion of the poor in the total population; poor persons in the own residential area; estimated increase of poverty: in the residential area, in the own country, in the EU, and in the world; reasons for poverty in general; social and individual reasons for poverty; population group with the highest risk of poverty; things that are necessary to being able to afford to have a minimum acceptable standard of living (heating facility, adequate housing, a place to live with enough space and privacy, diversified meals, repairing or replacing a refrigerator or a washing machine, annual family holidays, medical care, dental care, access to banking services as well as to public transport, access to modern means of communication, to leisure and cultural activities, electricity, and running water); perceived deprivation through poverty in the own country regarding: access to decent housing, education, medical care, regular meals, bank services, modern means of communication, finding a job, starting up a business of one’s own, maintaining a network of friends and acquaintances; assessment of the financial situation of future generations and current generations compared to parent and grandparent generations; attitude towards poverty: necessity for the government to take action, too large income differences, national government should ensure the fair redistribution of wealth, higher taxes for the rich, economic growth reduces poverty automatically, poverty will always exist, income inequality is necessary for economic development; perceived tensions between population groups: rich and poor, management and workers, young and old, ethnic groups; general trust in people, in the national parliament, and the national government (scale); trust in institutions regarding poverty reduction: EU, national government, local authorities, NGOs, religious institutions, private companies, citizens; reasons for poverty in the own country: globalisation, low economic growth, pursuit of profit, global financial system, politics, immigration, inadequate national social protection system; primarily responsible body for poverty reduction; importance of the EU in the fight against poverty; prioritized policies of the national government to combat poverty; assessment of the effectiveness of public policies to reduce poverty; opinion on the amount of financial support for the poor; preference for governmental or private provision of jobs; attitude towards tuition fees; increase of taxes to support social spending; individual or governmental responsibility (welfare state) to ensure provision; attitude towards a minimum wage; optimism about the future; perceived own social exclusion; perceived difficulties to access to financial services: bank account, bank card, credit card, consumer loans, and mortgage; personal risk of over-indebtedness; attitude towards loans: interest free loans for the poor, stronger verification of borrowers by the credit institutions, easier access to start-up loans for the unemployed, free financial advice for the poor, possibility to open a basic bank account for everyone; affordable housing in the residential area; extent of homelessness in the residential area, and recent change; adequacy of the expenditures for the homeless by the national government, and the local authorities; assumed reasons for homelessness: unemployment, no affordable housing, destruction of the living space by a natural disaster, debt, illness, drug or alcohol addiction, family breakdown, loss of a close relative, mental health problems, lack of access to social services and support facilities, lack of identity papers, free choice of this life; probability to become homeless oneself; own support of homeless people: monetary donations to charities, volunteer work in a charity, help find access in emergency shelters and with job search, direct donations of clothes to homeless people, buying newspapers sold by homeless people, food donations; sufficient household income, or difficulties to make ends meet; ability to afford the heating costs, a week’s holiday once a year, and a meal with meat ever...
Norway had the best press freedom index score in Europe in 2025 at *****, while the country with the worst score was Russia at just *****. The index presents an overview of the plurality and independence of the media and how safe and free it is for journalist to do their job, with higher scores indicating a better situation for the press and lower scores signaling potential risks and challenges Press freedom in the EU Journalists across the globe are at risk of being arrested, detained, imprisoned, and killed, and many face regular intimidation or are restricted by laws aimed at curtailing their freedom. Whilst Europe is among the safest regions in the world for media professionals, the press freedom index score has worsened in EU states across the bloc as well as in countries not part of the union. How many journalists die each year? Since the turn of the century there has been a noticeable increase in the number of journalists killed worldwide. Sadly, over one hundred journalists were killed in every year from 2012 to 2015, and although the situation has improved somewhat since then, ** journalists lost their lives as a result of their work in 2024, with Mexico ranked as the deadliest country for those employed in the field.
Among European Union countries in March 2025, Spain had the highest unemployment rate at 10.9 percent, followed by Finland at 9.4 percent. By contrast, Czechia has the lowest unemployment rate in Europe, at 2.6 percent. The overall rate of unemployment in the European Union was 5.8 percent in the same month - a historical low-point for unemployment in the EU, which had been at over 10 percent for much of the 2010s.
As of November 24, 2024 there were over 274 million confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) across the whole of Europe since the first confirmed cases in France in January 2020. France has been the worst affected country in Europe with 39,028,437 confirmed cases, followed by Germany with 38,437,756 cases. Italy and the UK have approximately 26.8 million and 25 million cases respectively. For further information about the coronavirus pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.
The Gender Equality Index benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, political, education, and health-based criteria among the countries of the European Union. A score of 0 indicates that there is no gender equality, while 100 points indicate that gender equality is achieved. In the 2024 index, the leading country was Sweden with 82 points. Denmark and the Netherlands were the second and third most gender equal countries. Considering the other side of the spectrum, Romania only scored 56.1 points, way below the EU average of 70.2. Other countries at the bottom of the ranking were Hungary and Romania. Equality in health Not only does the index measure gender equality on national levels, it also breaks down gender equality into different dimensions. With an index score of 88 points, health was the most equal dimension among men and women within the EU, followed by money and work. To the contrary, power was considered the most unequal dimension, along with knowledge and time management. The Global Gender Gap Index From a global perspective, Iceland is considered the most gender equal country. Dominating this list are the Nordic countries: Norway, Finland, New Zealand, and Sweden rank in the top 5. As of 2024, it was estimated that Europe had closed 75 percent of its gender gap, making it the most successful region in the world, before North and Latin America. Nevertheless, experts predict that gender parity will not be achieved in the region for another 67 years.
This statistic displays the income distribution of the poorest ** percent of earners in each European Union (EU) country. In 2015 the highest share of national equalized income that the lowest quartile group earned emerged from Czechia at **** percent of the national income. This was followed by Finland and Slovenia at **** percent and **** percent respectively.
Many of Europe's largest economies have seen falling shares of their national wealth taken by the bottom ** percent of the wealth distribution since the 1990s. Italy in particular stands out as a particularly stark case, as the bottom half owned around ** percent of the wealth in the country in 1995, while in 2021 they owned only *** percent. Russia is the other country which has seen a consistent decline in the wealth of its poorest ** percent, with the economic crises of the 1990s causing the poor to rapidly lose their share of wealth, but without any recovery during the years of economic success in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis. Germany, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom have seen more moderate decreases in the bottom ** percent share, with Spain and the UK in fact showing increases in their shares during the early 2000s, as their respective housing booms inflated the wealth of the poorest, before retracting during the financial crisis and great recession. Turkey stands out as an outlier among the large European economies, as the share taken by its bottom half has more than tripled since the 1990s, now having a higher share than in Russia and Italy. This period in Turkey has been marked by rapid economic growth, modernization, and urbanization, some of which has benefitted the poorest by providing new economic opportunities.
Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is a measure of economic production, which takes the entire output of a national economy during a year and divides it by the population of that country. In the European Union, Luxembourg, Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Austria come out on top as the countries which produced the most per capita in 2024. Europe's richest countries benefit from multinational companies Many criticisms have been made of using GDP per capita as away to judge a country's economic wealth in recent years, as global capital flows have come to distort the statistics and to give a warped impression of different countries' wealth. This is most notably the case for Ireland and for Luxembourg, which while certainly high-income countries, have experienced dramatic booms in their GDP over the past two decades due to the accounting practices of the large multinational corporations which have their European headquarters in these member states, such as Facebook and Apple in Dublin, and Amazon in Luxembourg. Will the poorest countries converge towards the EU average? At the bottom of the list, two of the most recent member states of the EU, Romania and Bulgaria, come last in terms of GDP per capita. Whether these countries will be able to capitalize on their relatively low-wages to spur economic growth and experience the convergence towards the older member states of the union shown by countries such as Estonia, Czechia, and Lithuania, remains a pressing issue for these poorer member states.