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This report addresses Europeans’ opinions on issues associated with gender equality and focuses on gender balance in business leadership. A greater understanding of Europeans’ opinions about women in leadership positions in companies could be of help to policymakers to develop gender balance policies that take into account the level of support such legislation would receive from EU citizens, at EU level as well as national level. The outline of the report is as follows.

• General associations with gender equality
• Equal representation of women and men in positions of responsibility
• How to achieve gender balance on company boards
• Legislation for more balanced representation of women and men on company boards

This survey was conducted by TNS Opinion & Social at the request of the Directorate- General Justice. It was coordinated by the Directorate-General for Communication. It is the result of the special Eurobarometer 376 (EB76.1) held from 3 to 18 September 2011 (fieldwork) and involved 26,856 interviews in all 27 Member States.5 The methodology used is that of the Standard Eurobarometer surveys of the Directorate-General for Communication (“Research and Speechwriting” Unit). A technical note explaining the methodology used in carrying out the interviews is annexed to this report.

This study follows on from that of 2010, in addressing European citizens’ general attitudes towards science and technology, and in particular:

• European citizens’ interest and level of information in the area
• Education in and attitudes towards science and technology
• Sources of information about science and technology
• The level of involvement Europeans should have in decisions about science and technology
• The role of ethics and ethical behaviour in research
• Young people and science
• Gender issues and science
• Open access to research results
• Look at changes in opinion since the last survey in 2010

The report covers the 28 Member States. However, because the fieldwork took place before the official date of Croatia's accession to the European Union on 1 July 2013, results are presented for the EU 27 and Croatia. The findings have been analysed firstly at EU level and secondly by country. Where possible results will be compared with the survey conducted in 2010. A variety of socio-demographic variables - such as respondents’ gender, age, education and occupation - have been used to provide additional analysis. Key questions in the survey, such as the level of information about developments in science and technology have also been used as key variables in the analysis to gain a deeper insight into Europeans’ views.

A first analysis has already been published on the 7 March 2011 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Women's day. In the first analysis, only the global results were available. The fieldwork survey was carried out by TNS Opinion from 9 February 2011 to 6 March 2011. This final analysis includes some complementary analytical elements as well as a new section dedicated to the maternity and paternity leave.

Several key points can be drawn from the results of this survey:

• Concerning all questions related to gender equality, one can observe that men and women tend to react in similar proportions. One can certainly wonder whether this 100th anniversary of the International Women's Day should not be considered as a real social step forward that may contribute to tackling or effectively reducing the gender gap.
• European trends must be completed by an analysis of national results that can sometimes turn out to be different. Unlike other surveys and common stereotypes relating to gender equality, we do not find regional or logical trends except in Nordic countries.
• One of the main conclusions of this survey can be the fact that, among all measures to be taken to achieve equality between men and women, Europeans favour encouraging measures rather than legal coercion.

This Special Eurobarometer report will help inform Horizon 2020 by providing insight on which areas European citizens would like scientific research to focus on, so as to tackle issues of most concern to them. More generally, this report will help inform forward looking activities, including foresight, in the European Commission; in particular those carried out by the Directorate-General for Research & Innovation, by the Bureau of the European Policy Advisers and by the Chief Scientific Adviser to the President.