Low female presence in IT world

Women involved in the IT world tended to be more involved in design rather than hardcore programme applications, a female employer said yesterday.

She said one should find out why women were turning away from IT.

The employer was among the audience at a seminar on Women And Men In The IT Labour Market held by the Employment and Training Corporation together with the Social Solidarity Ministry and the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality for Women and Men.

The seminar was held with the aim of making the IT labour market accessible to both men and women and to identify what could be the possible barriers encountered by female employees and to come up with solutions.

Social Solidarity Minister Dolores Cristina said there seemed to be an under-utilisation of women in the labour market. The Labour Force Survey estimated the number of female workers at 15 per cent of a total of 1,200 listed under computing and related activities.

Last year, out of 1,460 students studying ICT, mechanical engineering, electrical and electronics engineering at MCAST, only 8.4 per cent were girls. This was, however, a significant increase over the 2003 figures.

At the university, the picture was becoming more positive each year.

Female participation stood at over 60 per cent of all students and at the last graduation ceremony about one third of all graduates in IT related courses were women.

Ms Cristina said that initiatives aimed at addressing the need for skilled IT workers would aid social equity goals by helping women and men access a broader range of better-paying jobs.

The government would like to see women's roles include ownership, control and management in the IT sectors. Real changes would have taken place when women were in top decision-making roles.

Changing labour needs, Ms Cristina said, required a cultural shift. Employers needed to understand that by drawing more fully on the total labour force, more qualified and skilled workers would be employed in this area. Having a highly skilled workforce resulted in higher productivity and better quality products and services.

Furthermore, increasing the competition for IT jobs, by fully utilising the female labour pool more effectively, would inevitably mean that the "most capable persons" would be doing the important jobs, improving productivity overall.

Mariella Vella, from the ETC's research and development division, said that for the academic year 2003/2004, 27.5 per cent of graduates in IT related subjects were women. This was an increase of 4.1 per cent over the previous year.

At the Malta Council Of Arts, Science and Technology there were 537 students following the information and communications technology course this academic year and 18 per cent were female.

ETC courses in IT between October 2003 and September 2004 were attended by 1,260 people, 51 per cent of whom were female.

Ms Vella said that a study of 11 companies recruiting males and females in IT found that the average percentage of female IT staff in such companies was 25 per cent, most of whom had an A level standard of education.

British expert Jane Millar said that in the UK, women in IT were under-represented. They were also under-represented in courses expected to lead to a career in IT. This was in spite of the fact that the majority of graduates were women.