Ports, shipyards, aquaculture, fishing, renewable marine energies: the blue economy weighs 263 billion euros and supports nearly 4.9 million people in Europe. But in this changing sector, women remain a minority (about 29% of the workforce) and concentrated in support functions, far from machine rooms and boards of directors.
This is the observation of the summary report of the European Women on Board project, published on July 27, 2026, which compiles seven regional surveys conducted in 2025 and 2026 in Norway, Belgium, France, Germany, Cyprus, Greece and Romania. This project, financed up to 1.76 million euros as part of the Interreg Europe program, involves Brest Métropole for the French component.
A glass ceiling that resists the mix of facades
The report identifies seven mechanisms that are repeated, with varying intensities, from one region to another. First observation: inequalities take root long before hiring. From school, the representations associated with the professions of the sea, physical work, danger, male universe, guide the educational choices of young girls.
Then comes a double segregation, horizontal and vertical. Women are mostly found in the administrative, coastal tourism or support functions, when technical, operational and on-board positions remain mostly male. Greece is a notable exception: women represented 7.8% of the sailors registered in 2024, a rate higher than the international averages. But this encouraging figure hides a harsher reality, since access to command and chief posts remains largely closed.
Third obstacle: career progression slowed down by informal circuits (unofficial mentoring, co-optation, closed networks) that structurally penalize those who do not have access to it. The report also points to a persistent gap between the equality policies displayed and their concrete implementation on the ground: charters exist, but without monitoring indicators or clearly identified managers, they often remain a dead letter.
More than cultural organizational barriers
Beyond cultural biases, the authors insist on an often diminished point: the very organization of maritime work penalizes the retention of women in office. Unpredictable schedules, long boarding, personal protective equipment calibrated for male morphologies, all factors that disproportionately weigh on women who still assume, in the majority of the contexts studied, a heavier share of family responsibilities.
The report also highlights a phenomenon that is invisible in official statistics: in the family sectors of fishing and aquaculture, especially in Cyprus and western Greece, many women contribute substantially to the activity (administrative management, product processing) without this work being paid or accounted for.
An issue that goes beyond equality
Far from being limited to a plea for parity, the report articulates its point around an economic argument: in a sector facing skills shortages and a double green and digital transition, permanently depriving yourself of half the available workforce is a competitive handicap. The authors cite research combining a greater mix of teams with better safety at work, a major challenge in sectors, such as fishing or shipbuilding, which have some of the highest rates of serious accidents in Europe according to Eurostat.
A roadmap in seven steps
Rather than multiplying isolated mechanisms, the report proposes a framework for action structured around the complete career path, from school guidance (Attract) to retention in office over the duration of a career (Stay), through recruitment, integration, career development and access to leadership. Last link, considered essential by the authors: the measure. Without data disaggregated by gender, reliable and comparable from one region to another, it is impossible according to them to know where women really get out of the professional career, or whether the measures put in place have any effect.
The report must now feed the revision of seven regional policy arrangements under the Interreg Europe programme, with an established objective: to transform commitments in principle into measurable and time-monitored earnings obligations.
