Cyprus is the only EU state where girls outperform boys in programming skills

According to Eurostat data published on Thursday, 2025, Cyprus is the only European Union member state where girls aged 16 to 19 have a higher rate of programming language usage than boys. The study found that 6.29% of girls in this age group reported writing code in the three months prior to the survey, compared to 2.02% of boys, marking a 4.3% difference in favor of girls. Conversely, across the European Union, 19.8% of boys in the same age demographic reported writing code, compared to 10.0% of girls. Significant gender gaps favoring boys were observed in member states such as Portugal, where the gap reached 26.6%, Belgium at 17.9%, and Slovakia at 17.4%. Minimal gaps were recorded in Bulgaria, Latvia, and Romania. Additionally, the data indicates that girls aged 16-19 in the EU demonstrate higher digital content creation skills than the general population. Specifically, 79.2% of girls reported moving or copying files between folders or to the cloud, while 75.2% engaged in other related digital activities.