Economic decision-making has traditionally been a male-dominated sphere, as has political decision-making. By the same token, stereotypical views of women largely limit their access to economic decision-making. It should be kept in mind that to a large extent, this section overlaps with the section on political decision-making, since political decisions highly affect the economy. Furthermore, political and economic decision-making should not only be regarded in a national perspective, but also from an international viewpoint. Gender bias at a national level largely translates into gender imbalance in decision-making at an international level.

 Although some progress has been made over the last ten years or so in gender equity in staff, women’s representation at a decision-making level in major global financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the IMF, is much lower than men’s, with representation ranging from 4.2 per cent to 16.7 per cent in the Boards of Governors and Directors of both institutions, according to a WEDO survey. Within the United Nations, women’s representation at a senior level is also far from being equal to that of men. Furthermore, women’s representation is low in regional development banks in the world, which are principle sources of multilateral financing for development projects aimed at reducing poverty and fuelling economic growth.

 Within government structures, women hold much fewer economy related portfolios than men, with men being more concentrated in areas of economics, finance, trade, development, industry and agriculture. Women are much more likely to be concentrated in the so-called soft domains, such as education and health, social affairs and human resources. In the ECE countries, men outnumber women among top executives in private businesses, among employers as well as in membership on boards of Central Banks. According to a study financed by the European Commission only 23% of businesses in the European Union are owned by women. However, women’s entrepreneurial activities have been growing in the ECE region, not least in the transition economies, although much progress is yet to be made. More regular and updated statistics on the gender aspect of economic decision-making is needed in order to further analyse this topic. Furthermore, as the UNIFEM report, Progress of the World´s Women, points out conventional conceptions of the way in which economies operate offer limited guidance for polices to improve women’s economic position and ways to combine gender justice with economic justice.