Launch of OECD-APEC Report “The Role of Education and Skills in Bridging the Digital Gender Divide”

Minister Ribera, Minister Plá, Deputy Minister Yá?ez, Distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen,

I am thrilled to be launching this report today.

It represents a tangible sign of Chile’s commitment to inclusiveness and of your leadership to place the gender agenda at the center of APEC discussions.

For both women and men, being able to harness the potential of the digital transformation would contribute to more sustainable and inclusive economies and societies.

BUT, still today, women lag behind in their ability to afford, access and use digital tools.

Access

Worldwide there are around 250 million fewer women online compared to men. And it is all the same in APEC. In all APEC economies (except the US), we found that fewer women than men used internet (the widest gender gap was found in Peru at 5.3%, Indonesia and Malaysia at 4.8%).

And it is not just about access to the internet, but it is also about how we use it. More men use the internet to search for jobs (the widest gender gap was found in Chile at 9% and Mexico at 5%). Women use less Internet banking service in Mexico (3% less) and in Chile (10% less). Women are less likely to use mobile Internet services. In Mexico, for example, women are about 5% less likely to own a mobile phone and 10% less likely to use mobile Internet. And, women use and develop less software applications.

Affordability

Many women can not afford to purchase and operate digital technologies. In low- and middle-income economies 1GB of data can cost over 5% of a monthly salary. Affordability can be a major barrier to accessing digital tools and means, particularly in rural areas and among the socio- economically disadvantaged.

Here comes a vicious cycle!

Hurdles to affordability are particularly severe for women. A strong and negative correlation emerges between women’s education and income levels and the gender gap in mobile ownership and use of (mobile) Internet.

What are the underlying cases of the digital gender divide?

Lack of digital skills, time poverty and above all, harmful socio-cultural norms are keeping women away from the benefit of digitalisation. Worldwide, women spend more time in unpaid care work than men, ranging from 1.7 times more in the US to 4.1 times more in APEC. Evidently, this leaves women less times to grow in their careers or in any of their aspirations, and is generally accompanied by lack of social protection.

And then there is “technophobia” – lack of confidence in girls that often results from a mix of low education, employment status and income level. For example, in Mexico and China, 31% of women (versus 15% of men) who use mobile phones, are not using mobile Internet because they do not know how to access it, or because they fear digital technologies.

Women may also feel inadequate, threatened, unsafe or uncomfortable in taking a central stage online, and this is for a good reason. Estimates suggest that close to 3/4 of women online have been exposed to some form of cyber violence. For instance, in the US, 21% of women aged 18-29 have been sexually harassed online. Cyber-bullying, gender stereotyping and online harassment jeopardise girls and women’s ability to benefit from the opportunities that digital technologies offer. They also affect the well-being, self-confidence, trust and ultimately mental health and physical safety of girls and women. Here, it might be relevant to mention that the OECD has been reviewing its Recommendation on the Protection of Children Online, also with a focus on cyber-bullying, since the speed of digitalisation is increasing the risks for children (and girls). 

Policy can play a key role – Education

I encourage you all to go through this report because it clearly sets out the hurdles holding girls and women back, and more importantly, because it shows a tangible path that we can take to overcome these barriers.

In particular, education and schools have a central role to play, by contributing to dismantling gender stereotypes and helping girls develop the skills, ambition, and the confidence needed to thrive in the digital world. Lack of literacy skills could have an important consequence to women’s confidence in the use of Internet. For example, in China, 37% of women (versus 22% of men) who use a mobile phone identified reading and writing difficulties as barriers to using mobile Internet. So, granting access to (good) education to all girls and women who live in disadvantaged conditions or areas, is a necessary precondition to bridging the gender divide, in both the analogue and the digital worlds.

The gender stereotypes sometimes contained in textbooks, and the personal biases of educational professionals also need to be addressed. Too often communities, teachers and (also) family, exert peer pressure on girls to make choices that conform to stereotypical notions of femininity. This carries them away from rewarding educational pathways and careers, and often contributes to segregate them in a condition of financial dependence. For example, in APEC economies, women that have children and work in a digital intensive industry earn 11% less, on average, than their male counterparts.

Policy also needs to help fix, once and for all, the leaky STEM pipeline.

Too few women enrol in STEM studies in APEC. Only around 27% of STEM graduates are women. And even if they manage to enter STEM majors, women are far less likely to graduate in the field and are twice as likely to switch majors than their male colleagues. Men are almost 3.5 times more likely to be a doctoral holder in ICT and almost 3 times more likely to be a doctoral holder in “engineering, manufacturing and construction”, while women are over-representeed in “less-technical” fields (i.e., health – 79%, welfare – 75% and education). And this is due to the low level of confidence in girls! Our PISA study (looking at 15 year old students) found that across the board on questions regarding their abilities in science and mathematics, girls exhibit a 10% lower level of confidence than their male peers do. And girls expressed less positive attitudes towards competition than boys did in our PISA Survey. So, evidently, career paths are already starting to diverge before the age of 15, well before important career choices are actually made. Differences in self-confidence, in the willingness to compete, and women’s perceptions of tech industries being “masculine” and male-dominated, push women away from the most rewarding jobs and industries. For example, globally, 90% of software development is done by male only teams. No wonder the violent content!

Cultural and social environment determine the future of women.

For example, music, TV shows, films all contribute to exerting pressure for girls to make choices that conform to stereotypical notions of femininity. Social networks are opening another source of harassment and discrimination, with unfavourable images. The traditional cultural norms that we have in the analogue world is translated into the digital world. With the expansion of AI, we will face a great risk of further spreading gender bias through algorithms. Currently, boys aged 15 seem to be more inclined (at least twice as likely) to work as scientists or engineers, when compared to girls in the same age. No innate difference in aptitudes justifies or can explain why for every girl who would like to work in the ICT sector there are 10 boys willing to do so!

Addressing the lack of role models would help fix the leaky STEM pipeline. Because you cannot be what you cannot see!

A great example could be found in the Ni?aSTEMpueden, which I launched in 2017 together with the Ministry of Education of my country – Mexico. It highlights how education systems can become key actors for change and influence stereotypes through role modelling and career orientation for school-aged girls.

Let me give you an example of how strong gender stereotyping is in our socieites and schools. In Mexico, only 12% of the parents of 15-year-old girls expect their daughters to enter sciences, compared to 33% of parents of 15-year-old boys. In fact, 80% of girls participating thought that engineering was a career only for men and that their parents would not agree to them pursuing STEM.

More than connecting girls with female role models in STEM, we train teachers and parents to change their mentality so that they can build girls’ confidence in their abilities to pursue STEM professions.

And the impact? Today, the initiatve has reached more than 3,200 female and 1,000 male students between 7th-9th grade. We also have partnership with key ICT companies (i.e., Google, IBM, Microsoft, Lego Educaiton). When the will to fight for equality is present, much is possible, and at little financial cost.

We need more initiatives like this to start early!

Many actions can be implemented to narrow and ultimately close the gap in schools, universities and workplaces, and many of these can be taken at low costs for governments. Such actions, however, need to be part of a systemic approach and require a high level of commitment from policy makers and other stakeholders. Some policy actions are “must do’s” for economies that intend to reduce the digital gender divide. Examples of “must do” actions include raising awareness among teachers about their personal gender biases, making educational materials gender neutral and ending online violence. Other actions that can be considered “strategic and structural”, may require important budgetary commitments for non- negligible periods, e.g. improvements in girls’ digital literacy, improved opportunities for life-long learning, and better access to childcare and family support. These are however likely to have a great impact, notably in the long term.

Examples of such strategic and structural actions include designing and shaping lifelong learning opportunities to facilitate participation in the labour market and occupational transitions, as well as promoting female engagement in digital sectors. This needs to be done while addressing time constraints faced by women, through the provision of adequate childcare and family support.

Policy has a very important role to play.

Without the right policies, the obstacles that women have faced - and continue to face - in the analogue world are likely to multiply in the digital future. Given the severe economic and social penalties associated with the digital gender divide, the cost of action — which might seem high — is likely to be several times lower than the cost of inaction.

Early and systemic policy interventions, in education systems and also those aimed at changing cultural norms and tackling stereotypes, are crucial to address gender gaps and avoid them being further widened as the digital transformation unfolds.

An inclusive digital future is within reach - but we must act now!

We were proud to have been an important partner of APEC work on gender and will continue our collaboration with Chile in APEC through the implementation of your APEC Roadmap on Women and Inclusive Growth. I hope that today’s event will raise awareness among APEC economies, so they could renew their commitment to close the digital gender divide.

Question:The new wave of automation imposes significant risks on men and women. Women especially - as we have seen - will have to acquire new skills and switch to different occupations. The study mentions some of these, such as "Data Science," "Internet of Things," among others, what other skills did the study identify after reviewing hundreds of job descriptions?

We actually looked at millions of job adverts using data about online job postings.

The bottom message is the jobs of today and tomorrow will require workers to have a mix of “hard” and “soft” skills, so to speak.

In the case of ICT-related occupations, the analysis shows very clearly that the ideal candidate, the type of workers that companies are looking for, need to have the right skills mix. It does not suffice to have good computer skills anymore. ICT-related workers need to also have soft skills such as “communication skills”, and to have “problem solving” abilities, as well as “project management” skills.

When it comes to non-ICT jobs, i.e. all jobs excluding ICT jobs, sought after workers are again often required to display specific job skills (e.g. “patient care”) coupled with technical skills related to the digital era, be them “artificial intelligence” or “internet of Things” related, as well as soft skills such as “design thinking” and again “communication”.

So, synthesising, the key is in the mix. We need to start thinking in terms of skills for the digital era rather than digital skills only (too often intended only as ICT-related skills). Both are needed to thrive in today’s labour markets and will be even more necessary in the future from the trends we have been observing over the last years.