Why is gender equality important in STEM? My reflections after #IWD

As we close out the month of March, I have been reflecting on the events and discussions we at Deloitte held with our employees and guest speakers throughout the month to mark #IWD2020. We shared our refreshed gender balance strategy, gathered input and views from our employees and examined areas such as unconscious bias, the value of sponsorship and mentorship and the importance of measurement to improve gender balance and ensure we support women to reach their full potential in their careers.

Our most recent event addressed the declining numbers of women in STEM and the measures needed to address this. We all know the old adage – you can’t be what you can’t see – and it’s really important that girls have visible role models in the STEM space and see this area as a viable career choice. The impact of positive engagement of women in STEM was best illustrated through this year’s iWish conference in which we participated. 

Those of us who began our careers in technology have a particular appreciation of the important role of Ada Lovelace back in the mid-19th century – often referred to as the world’s first programmer and 'prophet of the computer age'. Despite this, unbelievably, the number of females in STEM is currently in decline. 

To me, it starts with our education system and the way we teach STEM subjects. With three daughters myself, this is an active discussion in our house. While girls tend to outperform boys in the Leaving Certificate overall, they remain underrepresented in STEM. The state exam has long been known as a blunt instrument that has traditionally relied on assessing the “learning by rote” of curated knowledge to determine how third level college places are allocated. This is something we need to challenge from a couple of perspectives, such as how we move from a knowledge-based learning system to one that values skills, but more importantly that cultivates intellectual curiosity and problem-solving. Would changing how we teach science, engineering and maths make a tangible difference to the numbers of girls undertaking and excelling in these subjects?

Looking beyond the education system to how this imbalance manifests in the world of work, the sobering prediction of the 2020 Global Gender Gap report from the World Economic Forum is that gender parity will not be attained for 99.5 years. Why is this important? Developing and deploying one-half of the world’s available talent has a huge bearing on the growth, competitiveness and future-readiness of economies and businesses worldwide.  The good news for Ireland is that we rank 7th out of 153 countries, but we still have a significant amount of work to do, especially when you consider that the greatest challenge to closing the economic gender gap is the under-representation of women in emerging roles such as cloud computing, engineering, Data and AI. 

We know from our own recent Global survey that working women have been disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, with nearly 82% of women surveyed saying their lives have been negatively disrupted, and nearly 70% of women who have experienced these disruptions expressing concern about their ability to progress in their careers.

What makes this particularly important is that we are at a significant moment in history – previous moments in history such as the invention of the printing press and the beginning of the industrial revolution transformed society.  In my view, we are experiencing another significant moment now, where technology – and digital technology in particular – has the power to transform our society once again.  As our environment and society continues to change dramatically over a relatively short period, throwing up ever-increasing amounts of data, the value lies in the insights we can develop from this plethora of information.  

With women playing a fundamental role in the guardianship of our society, their participation is crucial in developing the solutions and technologies that will help to shape the society of the future. Without a balance of voices and perspectives across the board and indeed, at the most senior levels of discussion, what kind of future are we building? Are we developing a future that meets the needs of all the inhabitants of our planet, or fewer than half of them? This, to me, is at the heart of why it is so important to encourage greater female participation in STEM.

International Women’s Day creates the opportunity to reflect on the progress we are making in gender equality. The pace of change in our society is accelerating rapidly. We don’t just need gender equality in our society, but in specific parts of our economy and our society – those parts invested in creating our future. This won’t be achieved through an annual day of reflection but through ambitious multi-annual programmes that challenge how we are developing a diverse workforce through our society, our education system and in our workplaces. We have much still to do.