Gender equality in Germany is below the European average, according to a new European Union (EU) study released on Wednesday in Brussels.
The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) placed Germany 12th in a ranking of all EU 28 member states in its new Gender Equality Index, which scores countries from 0 to 100 across domains including work, health, and political representation.
The index gave Germany a score of 65.5 for 2015, which put it just below the 66.2 average score for all 28 EU member states for that year.
Germany’s score suffered particularly in the area of education where it came in 25th in the EU-wide ranking. That was a notable drop from its 16th place ranking in the last version of the index.
Women in Germany tend to study subjects in the social sciences and humanities, whereas men tend to study subjects in the hard sciences. Those choices, the report said, impact later earnings for both groups as jobs associated with the social sciences and humanities tend to pay less than those associated with the hard sciences.
Read more on Deutsche Welle.