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A Bright Future in ICTs Opportunities for a new generation of women

Executive Summary

The future of the ICT sector is exciting. These are unchartered waters open to creativity, innovation and entirely new ways of working, interacting and learning that should appeal to women and men alike. The Institute for the Future identifies six drivers most likely to shape the future workforce: longer life spans; a rise in smart devices and systems; advances in computational systems such as sensors and processing power; new multimedia technology; the continuing evolution of social media; and a globally connected world. The ICT sector clearly underpins this future.

This summary report surveys the global trends in women’s professional development and employment in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, and offers a sample of the range of national policies, training programs and initiatives targeting girls and women as potential students and professionals. The key points arising from this research are divided into:

  • key findings – status report
  • why we need to engage more women
  • expanding horizons with government support
  • the future of jobs in the ICT sector.

 

Key Findings – status report

  • The ICT sector remains a buoyant and growing sector for employment and a key sector underpinning both national and international development. Employment in the ICT sector has continued to grow significantly in recent years. This growth, however, has not led to a parallel increase in women’s presence in the ICT labour market, with the male-female gap being particularly pronounced at senior levels. In comparison to the general growth of the sector, women’s employment figures in advanced economies are actually in decline, which suggests that the issue is not just an entry level problem but also one of demotivation, of retention and/or promotion of women within the sector at many levels.

  • The perception in most countries that the ICT sector is a male-dominated industry still persists. Males dominate most high-value and income jobs in the ICT sector. Research conducted for this study in both developed and developing countries found classic cases of vertical gender segregation, with women more strongly represented in lower level ICT occupations than in higher status and higher paid arenas. Although women are making inroads into technical and senior professions, there remains a ‘feminization’ of lower level jobs. On average, this research found that women accounted for 30 per cent of IT operations technicians, a mere 15 per cent of ICT managers and only 11 per cent of IT strategy and planning professionals.

  • There is also room for significant improvement in the number of women holding leadership positions at board and senior management levels.

Why we need to engage more women

  • Human talent with the right skill sets will continue to be the key for the building of a vibrant and diversified ICT sector. That talent pool will need to be enriched by the building and training of non-discriminatory human capital primarily in universities, research and development centers and trade or ‘applied’ schools to respond to the evolving ICT industry.

  • Because the ICT sector is fast-paced and dynamic, the skills of the ICT workforce need also to keep up with the pace of change. This suggests that ICT qualifications need to be extended to include a much broader spectrum – which in turn suggests that there may potentially be more employment openings that might attract the attention and interest of girls and women.

  • The ICT sector needs to invest more resources in human capital development and in creating an enabling environment for women and girls. There are compelling economic reasons for engaging women more prominently. Closing the male-female employment gap is good for economic growth. Research indicates that the narrowing in the male-female employment gap has been an important driver of Europe’s economic growth in the last decade. In the Asia and Pacific Region, for example, restricting job opportunities for women is costing the region between USD 42 and USD 46 billion a year. World Bank findings demonstrate that similar restrictions have imposed massive costs throughout the Arab States Region, where the gender gap in economic opportunity remains the widest in the world today. The World Economic Forum reveals that those countries that are role models in dividing resources equitably between women and men, regardless of their level of resources, fare better than those that do not.

  • Engaging women and girls in ICT sector work is not only the right thing to do from the point of social justice. It is also smart economics. Gender diversity in high value ICT jobs in both management and on companies’ boards is good for business performance. Studies exploring the link between women in leadership positions and business performance have shown a direct positive correlation between gender diversity on top leadership teams and a company’s financial results. More diverse teams make better informed decisions, leading to less risk-taking and more successful outcomes for companies. Over time, therefore, a nation’s ICT competitiveness depends significantly on whether and how it educates and utilizes its female skills.

Expanding horizons with government support

  • A combination of approaches that ensure that more girls and women benefit from pro-women policies and are prepared for the future workforce underscores the need for training and career support at three distinct levels: for entrance levels by way of education, training, recruitment, internship and career incentives – which require a national reassessment of educational infrastructure and delivery systems; for mid-career levels through career promotion and training; and for management and senior levels through mentorship, up-skilling and sponsorship programs;

  • At the same time parents, teachers, career guidance counsellors and recruiters need to shift their own mindsets to acknowledge that ICT careers are an important and viable opportunity for girls. And in order to secure initial gains made, women already active in the ICT sector need to take time to engage with community initiatives to mentor girls and young women and participate in virtual and face to face communities of practice;

  • Governments need to place a premium on promoting ICT skills in primary, secondary and higher education. The curricula need to reinforce each other at different levels, from computer camps for pre-high school or secondary school students, to ICT classes for high school students right through to mentoring and sponsoring. This needs to be complemented by investment in vocational training.

  • Governments need also to invest in on-the-job and industry-based training initiatives with a focus on promoting advanced ICT skills in and with the private sector.

  • The changing character of ICT occupations has intensified the need to ensure that graduates emerge with skills that match employer demand. These demands shift away from traditional ICT occupations (such as computer programmers) and towards business/ICT specialists, highly specialized ICT areas (such as micro-computing or quantum-computing) and multidisciplinary ICT occupations (such as bioinformatics and industrial design). This puts increased pressure on educators and the sector to guide interested students into relevant ICT education and career paths.

  • In order to bring about a significant increase in girls’ and women’s engagement and employment across the board in the ICT sector, the core of current education systems and infrastructure needs to be restructured in four fundamental ways:

  • Instruction needs to be made more relevant – combining industry, science and the arts in curricula that focus not only on preparing for college education but also on vocational courses. A more technologically astute avenue for students that cater to their interests in engineering needs to be established. ICT courses need to be “hybred” into all curricular offered by community colleges and technical schools;

  • Schools need to improve the quality of their execution, away from rote individualistic learning to hands-on, team-work and problem-solving teaching methods;

  • Schools need to ensure that students know about the continually evolving nature of the knowledge economy and that learning does not stop once basic schooling is completed. This also means that companies need to offer a more collaborative workplace experience engaging workers and giving them opportunities to continuously improve and seek productivity gains;

  • More funds or subsidies need to be placed for technical training and incubation programs.

The future of the ICT job market

  • Since the dot-com bust at the beginning of the millennium, the demand for technology jobs has steadily increased. There are now more IT jobs in the United States than there were at the height of the dot-com boom.

  • The ICT sector has changed radically since early computing days – and the ‘knowledge economy’ is now taking on hitherto unseen dimensions where communication technologies have become forces of social change. Social media and its participatory formats are as much about the technologies as they are about their applications – bringing the virtual and physical worlds closer together in dynamic ways across several platforms.

  • The development of new goods and services is expected to drive demand from businesses, households and governments; with replacement ICT investments further boosting continuing demand. Much of the growth of the highly globalized ICT sector comes from the efficiencies gained from the global re-organization of research, development and production to provide new and improved ICT products and services to new and expanding markets. This includes the expanding use of software and extensive application of outsourcing. Additional ICT growth is expected to come from “green growth” through “smart” applications in buildings, transport, energy, and production which will translate into demand for customized applications.

  • As ICTs merge with sector-specific technologies across the economy, they produce “hybrid jobs”. The expectation is that young women will show more interest in opportunities that use their creativity and intuition, in for example software application design. Their future is particularly promising in bioengineering, power grid informatics, digital media, and social and mobile apps; these are interesting, fun, creative and social mashed-up hybrid jobs that combine ICT with business of every imaginable field.

  • ICT employment opportunities for women in the post 2008 global economic and finance crash era include high-speed internet, cloud computing, green ICT goods and services and their “smart” applications as these are presently heavily promoted by governments as a strategic response to the economic crisis.

The full report provides evidence to prove that a range of initiatives are already underway to support girls and women in the ICT sector as more governments recognize the importance and necessity of taking these deliberate steps. The most important determinant of a country’s competitiveness is its human capital and talent - the skills, education and productivity of its workforce. Women account for one-half of the potential talent base throughout the world. Closing gender gaps is therefore not only a matter of human rights and equity; it is also one of efficiency and economic productivity. To maximize its competitiveness and development potential, skills need to be seen as a key part of an economy’s infrastructure, and the more sound that infrastructure is the more robust and resilient the economy will be in response to opportunities and challenges. The choices made by policymakers, enterprises and individuals on investment in education and training must strive for gender equality—that is, to give women the same rights, responsibilities and opportunities as men. Business leaders and policy-makers need to work together towards removing barriers to women’s entry to the ICT workforce and putting in place practices and policies that will provide equal opportunities for rising to positions of leadership within the ICT sector. Such practices will ensure that all existing resources are used in the most efficient manner and that the right signals are sent regarding the future flow of talent.