The Rise of Women in STEM

Still in the spirit of celebrating women across the world and the progress they are making in breaking gender biases and driving inclusion, especially in the context of careers and the workplace, we compare existing data across 16 countries, representing the global environment, on women inclusion in STEM roles. We find that, for the most part, there are many systemic problems that need to be addressed for women to achieve greater equality in STEM and tech, including gaps in STEM degrees, inequality in pay, and issues related to workplace culture.

Nigeria

Women make up 22% of Engineering and Technology university graduates every year, and roughly a fifth of the ICT sector’s workforce, as estimated by the NBS. There has been a growing awareness of this issue in recent times and steps are currently being taken to address the imbalance, including a new bill in the National Assembly.

South Africa

Women currently hold 19% of tech-related jobs at the top 10 global tech companies, compared to 81% held by men; and they occupy 28% of leadership positions at these global tech giants, compared to 72% occupied by men. More shocking stats reveal a higher imbalance in the ratio of females to males graduating with STEM-related (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) degrees year on year: maths and statistics (4:5), ICT and technology (2:5), and engineering, manufacturing, and construction (3:10).

United States

As of 2019, 19.1 million workers aged 25 and above were employed in STEM occupations in the U.S., an increase of 1.8 million from 2016’s figure. Women make up half (50%) of the workforce employed in STEM jobs, slightly higher than the 47% share in the overall workforce. Across STEM occupations, the representation varies widely. For instance, women are heavily over-represented among health-related jobs (the largest STEM occupational cluster) and under-represented in several other occupational clusters.

Canada

Women constitute less than a quarter of the total workforce in STEM careers and less than a fifth of the nuclear sector’s workforce in Canada. As of Q1, 2021, there were 448,000 women working in the ICT sector. At the same time, the unemployment rate for women in ICT professions stood at 3.3%.

Greater diversity in the STEM workforce would offer significant benefits to Canadians by addressing skills shortages, increasing innovation and capacity, and providing a greater return on human resources investments.?

Mexico

47% of Mexican women are part of the workforce, howbeit lacking in growth opportunities, and most of them work in the informal sector and/or in job positions with low wages (OECD). The newest publication by Laboratoria together with SAP Mexico sheds light on the adversities faced by women trying to incorporate themselves in Mexico’s technology sector, as well as the findings on the social and economic impact created by the discrimination of women. Only 9% of women enroll in STEM majors compared to 28% of men and they occupy only one in every four job positions in the technology sector, according to Gassman.

Argentina

Argentina's ICT sector is currently the third-largest in Latin America by the number of subscribers, next to Brazil and?Mexico. In regional terms, the country's penetration rates in the main ICT services – mobile?telephony, fixed-line telephony, fixed broadband, and Pay TV - are relatively high. The sector was estimated to create 1.4 million jobs in the country in 2020. However, despite the burgeoning scale, women represent merely 25 percent of the technology sector. Though there have been slight increases in the last few years, the statistic is not expected to change much in the short term. From available data, as of 2018, only 15 to 20% of women graduated from Information Systems-related programs on average, depending on the University and, according to the country's Education Ministry, just 7 out of 100 women who started a program from 2016-2018 chose the Systems area. A National Ministry of Education report?reveals that women constitute over 78% of teachers in Argentina but struggle to implement technological devices and methodologies in their classrooms. Research shows that social and cultural barriers, gender stereotypes, and biases underlie the challenges women face with using technologies as educational tools.

Brazil

Demand for skilled professionals in the technology sector in Brazil has been soaring over the past few years. However, organizations across the country are still failing to attract women and ensure diversity generally. According to government data on employed and unemployed professionals, female participation in the industry grew 60% from 27,900 women in 2014 to 44,500 in 2019. However, women still represent only 20% of the country's technology professionals and 21% of technology teams in Brazil have no female representation, according to the Brazilian Association of Information Technology Companies (Brasscom).

United kingdom

According to WISE1, just 23% of the people working in STEM roles across the UK are female - and only 5% of leadership positions in the technology industry are held by women. In July and September 2021, 58,000 jobs were created in the information and communication category, of which 41,000 (71%) of the professionals placed were women, as revealed by the new employment data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). ONS data suggests that Technology was the third top sector in terms of job creation for women, and it is the third fastest sector for job growth in the UK overall.

Germany

Women constitute just 16.8% of tech specialists in Germany. The German gender pay gap in tech is among the worst in the European continent; with only Greece, Poland, Estonia, Slovakia, Lithuania, and the Czech Republic ranking lower, according to Honeypot data. Male tech workers in Germany are estimated to earn almost €15,000 more, on average, per year than their female counterparts.

China

According to the UNDP, women make up less than 30% of China’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) students, less than 20% of China’s most popular tech positions, and just 6% of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) members.

India

Women constitute less than 35 percent of India’s technology industry, according to a March 2020 NASSCOM report, “India’s Tech Industry: Women For The Techade”. There is an upward trend as women increasingly join the workforce in the tech industry. Also, according to the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), young girls in India currently comprise 30 percent of engineering students, which is among the highest in the world and more than in developed nations like the US, UK, Germany, and France.

Japan

Things are looking up for female workers in Japan. 43.34% of the country's workforce in all sectors are female, and this is due to the Japanese government's desperate efforts to increase the size of its labour force in response to its old population and the resulting negative impact on its economy - Japan had the?second-weakest performance of all major economies in 2017. Women are feeding an economic need as the country is running out of a vibrant working population. Initiatives such as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's "Womenomics" agenda, launched in 2013, increased the rate of pay for those on parental leave and expanded the capacity for day-care facilities. Moreover, companies having more than 300 employees are required to set and disclose gender diversity targets, and strategies to achieve them. From 2013 to 2016, the percentage of Japanese women choosing to work, partly as a result of this initiative, rose from 65% to 68.1%, according to CNBC.

Saudi Arabia

Women’s participation rate in the IT sector in Saudi Arabia rose from 11 percent in 2017 to 24 percent in 2021, which is higher than Silicon Valley by 8 percent. The TrustRadius 2021 Women in Tech Report, which surveyed over 450 tech workers in the country— 66 percent of whom identified as women — revealed that women in tech see as a major step the need to put in more effort than their male counterparts in order to show their worth. It also shows that 39 percent of women in IT see gender discrimination as a barrier to progress. Most importantly, for women in the country, sustainability in technology careers has been a predominant issue, as, although the government encourages them to study technology, they drift away after they graduate. Also, 82.2 percent of registered businesswomen in Saudi Arabia finance their businesses with their personal savings, and 12.9 percent take loans from family and friends, according to the IFC. They avoid commercial loans and this shows their tendency to be risk-averse.

The UAE

40 percent of university students specializing in computer science and IT in the middle east are women. In the UAE, the percentage is even higher as women represent 70-80 percent of computer science and IT students compared to 15-20 percent in the United States. There is no perception among young women that computer science and IT is an exclusive field for men.?

An International Finance Corporation (IFC) study also showed that women entrepreneurs in the country tend to be risk-averse and mostly finance their businesses with their savings or credit cards, or by reinvesting profits from their businesses, rather than using commercial bank loans. Each GCC government has a national fund to support entrepreneurs. However, apart from the traditional funding approaches, there are no structured provisions for venture capitalists and angel investors in the GCC states, resulting in diminished protection for both entrepreneurs and investors.

New Zealand

The New Zealand tech industry is a dynamic growth industry to work in, offering higher than average salaries, a variety of roles, and great career opportunities. However, despite the tech sector's ongoing need for employees, women are in the minority, occupying only 23% of professional IT roles in total. Less than 1 in 20 girls considers a high-paid career in science, technology, engineering, or maths, compared to 1 in 5 boys, according to the OECD.

Australia

According to the 2021 Women in STEM Survey Report by Professionals Australia, women represent only 29 percent of the university-qualified STEM workforce. Science is the most common broad field of qualification for females, representing 45 percent of the female STEM-qualified labour force, followed by Information Technology (21 percent), Engineering (20 percent), Agriculture and Environmental Science (10 percent), and Mathematics (4 percent). Women account for only 12 percent of the STEM workforce in Construction; 15 percent in Transport, postal, and warehousing; 17 percent in Mining; 20 percent in IT; 22 percent in Professional, scientific and technical services; 60 percent in Healthcare; and 41 percent of Education and training.

In terms of representation in leadership roles, women make up only 22 percent of STEM university-qualified managers and 13 percent of executives.

In terms of remuneration, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s (WGEA) Gender Equality data shows a gender pay gap of 22.0 percent in the Professional, scientific, and technical services industry (including engineering), and a gap of 20.8 percent in the Information, media, and telecommunications industry compared to an average pay gap of 14.0 percent across all industries in the country.

Another issue is the?comparatively lower retirement savings for females than their male counterparts. The WGEA's 2020 data shows that 23 percent of women have no superannuation at retirement age compared to 13 percent of men.

Conclusion

As STEM and the tech industry globally continues to evolve, the hope is opportunities will continue to grow for women who often do not have as broad a network as men in the presently male-dominated industry. Some countries are definitely taking the right steps already and with the efforts being made to support the movement globally, there is a good potential for higher inclusion over the next couple years and decade.?