The latest European Commission data shows that enabling more women to enter the digital jobs market would boost the GDP of the EU by €9 billion per annum. There is still a very large gender gap in the European ICT sector, where only 30% of the seven million people working in the sector are women, who especially underrepresented in leadership positions.
At the latest GSMA Europe Mobile Meeting Series entitled Fostering Women Inclusion in the Tech Sector, participants discussed how to increase the involvement of women in the digital sector. The discussion started by focusing on the gender salary gap between women and men in all sectors. The income of female workers across the world will lag behind men’s for another 70 years, if the gender pay gap continues to narrow at the present painfully slow rate.
Women are paid less than men, have less time than men and have more responsibility for childcare. Other barriers include stereotypical media portrayals of women, a limited number of female leaders across all sectors, and several policies that don’t address specifically their impact on women. Participants agreed there is both an ethical and economic urgency to overcome these challenges.
The discussion concluded that the ICT sector has the means to reduce the gender gap and bring about a social revolution, which will be critical for a healthy European digital single market. The role of education – in the broadest sense of developing interest in science and modern technologies – was at the centre of the debate. Kids and teenagers of both sexes need to be exposed to science and appropriate role models.
The European Commission`s initiatives, such as the European Coding Week, are critical to generate interest among teenagers in ICT, but participants also highlighted the importance of marketing career prospects in science and technology to sustain this interest.
The ICT industry needs to set up a flexible working environment, which gives women the possibility to grow, express their potential and be successful. In this respect, participants shared some best practices supported by the solid economic argument that companies with a gender balance perform better.
To be more inclusive, the digital sector needs to provide support for women at mid-management level returning from maternity leave, as well as mandatory paternal leave. Other best practices include structuring procurement rules in favour of companies with a gender balance or female leadership, as well as introducing quotas and gender-balanced panels.
Participants highlighted the need for a joint effort between industry and policymakers to adopt concrete actions to empower women in the digital sector. A clear and comprehensive legislative framework that supports flexibility in the workplace is needed to allow women to achieve an optimum work-family life balance. Reducing the gender gap in the digital sector requires a cultural paradigm shift, which begins with a shift in how girls are raised from a very young age. It is, thus, vital to include gender consideration in policy proposals across every single sector and involve men in gender-related discussions.