Sunday, March 8 is International Womens Day. A good moment to ask: how is the Amsterdam woman doing? For example, regarding education, work, and health? The new Emancipation Monitor provides answers. These help to take measures for equal opportunities for everyone.

Sara Rubingh works at O&S, the research department of the Municipality of Amsterdam. She led the research. “We looked at differences between Amsterdam women and men in 5 different areas. Education, work and income, political participation, safety, and health. We obtained the data from existing sources. For example, the Central Bureau of Statistics has a lot of information about education. And we conduct an extensive survey on political participation every year ourselves.”

What stands out?

“Amsterdam has relatively many women with a higher professional education or university degree. Among young women, there are even more than among young men. Remarkably, women are simultaneously less often economically independent. Women do much more unpaid work than men. Think of household and care tasks, but also volunteer work. So you could say that women participate more socially. When it comes to political participation, there is a striking difference with the rest of the Netherlands. Here, as many women as men vote. Elsewhere, men go to the polls more often than women.”

Differences among women

“We also looked at differences within the entire group of Amsterdam women. What stands out is that, for example, women with a migration background or a basic education experience poorer health than other women. And young women feel unsafe more often and are more often victims of street intimidation than older women. Incidentally, people – women and men – generally feel less safe in cities than in smaller places.”

Non-binary Amsterdammers

Not everyone is a woman or a man. But non-binary Amsterdammers are not included in the monitor. Rubingh: “This group is difficult to study because the numbers are so small. There are only about 100 people officially registered with an x in Amsterdam. Of course, there are more people who identify as non-binary or genderqueer. We estimate that it concerns about 0.2 percent of the population. But in our surveys, we have too few respondents from this group to make reliable statements about them.”

Taking measures

Amsterdam stands for equal rights. The results of the Emancipation Monitor are useful for all kinds of policies of the municipality. In the coming years, all policies will be reviewed to see if they maintain or even reinforce inequality. This is called ‘gender mainstreaming’. Amsterdam is the first city in the Netherlands to work on gender-inclusive policy. To ensure it is fair for every Amsterdammer.

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