Gender policy coherence: annual statement 2025

Introduction

We want women and girls to be empowered to exercise equal rights and opportunities, have equitable access to economic resources and decision making, and live their lives free from all forms of violence, abuse and harassment.

Gender inequality is complex and harmful. It affects everyone – not just women and girls – but all of us, collectively as a country.

While there has been considerable progress in Scotland, gender equality remains an unwon cause.

For example, women remain less likely to be in contractually secure jobs, more likely to be segregated into low-paid sectors culturally stereotyped as ‘female,’ less likely to be in senior positions and earn less than their male counterparts including when they have comparable educational qualifications. These issues are further compounded for women with intersecting protected characteristics, low socioeconomic backgrounds for women from rural and island areas.

One in ten women reported having experienced stalking and harassment and around 3% had experienced partner abuse in the previous 12 months (2018-20). It should be noted that these statistics may underestimate the incidence of partner abuse as some women may not feel comfortable disclosing their experience.

While women may have a longer life expectancy and healthy life expectancy than men, the proportion of their life that is spent in good health is notably and consistently lower than men’s.

Women remain considerably underrepresented in positions of power, constituting only 26.6% of Council Leaders, 24.1% of senior police officers and judges and 11.8% of newspaper editors.

We continue to take forward work to protect, promote and improve gender equality, recognising intersectional inequality, in Scotland. The NACWG was appointed in 2017 to consider actions to improve gender inequality.

Over Phase One (2018-2020), the NACWG delivered an ambitious and challenging package of 21 recommendations that they believed would make systemic change if taken forward collectively and with energy. We accepted all of the NACWG’s recommendations, while acknowledging that the task of realising them in practice would require more detailed consideration and a ‘whole government’ approach to achieve meaningful and long-term system change.

One of these recommendations was that Scottish Ministers deliver an annual statement on gender policy coherence, followed by a debate in the Scottish Parliament. This report is our first annual statement.

This annual statement is the result of cross-government work, spanning several ministerial portfolio areas and requiring input from multiple Ministers and Cabinet Secretaries. This is reflective of the whole-government commitment to tackling inequality, with a specific focus on the inequality faced by women and girls. The intention of this Statement is to make visible the action being taken across the government to address the barriers women face in a coherent way. Future statements will provide a progress report on this action, and will sit alongside the forthcoming Equality Strategy for Women and Girls that is currently being developed.

The chapters on ‘leadership’, ‘accountability’ and ‘creating conditions’ give updates on the original 21 NACWG recommendations. The statement then discusses women in our Four Priorities: eradicating child poverty, growing the economy, tackling the climate emergency, and ensuring high quality and sustainable public services. The final chapter then shows how our domestic policy aligns with our feminist approach to international relations and international development.