this gender inequality It is a serious problem in this country in the digital world. Men working in digital occupations in Spain triple the number of women working in these occupations: 875,000 men against 295,000 women. If the rate of women entering this sector does not increase, It will take more than thirty years to close this gap. and the demand of the digital market will not be met.
This inequality in an area that is very important for the development of the economy, more than a million open According to a study by Closing Gap and International Financial Analysts (AFI), with the number of professionals by 2053 and opportunity costs of more than 71,000 million euros for that year alone.
‘The opportunity cost of the gender gap in digital occupations’ report‘It impacts emerging gender inequalities in digital jobs, made public this Tuesday. The most obvious is that only 25% of these positions they are occupied by women (an even lower percentage in areas such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, blockchain or video game development).
Between 2019 and 2021, inclusion rates in these disciplines increased to 5.6% compared to 2.1% of men, but these are still insufficient numbers, leading to a scenario if sustained. inequality until 2053.
Why aren’t women committed to digital jobs when their employability is 7 points higher than non-digital jobs and this job is more resilient to crises? The Closing Gap study points in several directions.
The main causes of gender inequalities stem from: lack of shared responsibility in care, gender stereotypes that condition the perceptions, expectations and decision-making of women and men in their educational and professional stages, and the absence of leading women in this field.
They direct their work less towards these occupations. They predominate in post-compulsory digital studies classrooms: this is evident in VET related to the field, where they make up only 22% of students (less than 9% in the middle class), and also university where there are only 0.54 women for every man studying these disciplines.
There is a lack of references and technological and digital leaders to encourage and motivate girls and young people who have no one to look after. To begin with, only one out of every five professors in these careers is a woman, and one in four who are research faculty. If you look at the center, it’s among the hundred most important tech companies according to the magazine. forbesThere is only one CEO.
The study highlights that female workers entering these occupations have worse working conditions: more temporary employment than men (17.9% versus 12.1%) and a higher bias rate (6% versus 2.1% for men). ,8).
Worse still, capital invested in startups mostly goes to male teams: only 3% of capital invested in start-ups goes to women-only companies, compared to 84% received by male teams and 13% by mixed ones. is coming.
The closing Gap study explains: The gender gap in digital professions will exacerbate another gap in the availability of professionals for these disciplines.. Around 3 million people will be needed in Spain in 2053 and 1.1 million employees will be missing if only 142,000 jobs are created annually as it is now.
“Only with the increasing inclusion of women in the digital professions will we be able to respond to the enormous demand for professionals we know will be in the future. (…) Are we willing to give up as a society to be able to do that? To tap into all female talent, to foster the generation of young women of that talent?” asked Verónica López, coordinator of the study.
If Spain cannot include women in the digital world, it will not be able to respond to the enormous demand for digital professions in the coming years.