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Tech's “Woman Problem”

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Tech's “Woman Problem” IT Professionals Australia TECH’S “WOMAN PROBLEM” - more than just a pipeline issue PAGE 1 ABOUT IT PROFESSIONALS AUSTRALIA IT Professionals Australia represents IT professionals across the full spectrum of industries and specialisations. Our members work in a wide variety of roles including IT trainers, IT sales, business and systems analysts, multimedia specialists, web developers, software and applications programmers, video game designers, database and systems administration, cybersecurity, IT support, test engineers, telecommunications and IT management as employees, via labour hire agencies and as contractors and consultants. We have members who work across the finance, health, defence, education, infrastructure, mining and resources, manufacturing, agribusiness, law and cybersecurity industries who are specialists in artificial intelligence, video gaming, quantum computing, cryptography, robotics, blockchain, biometrics, wearable technologies, medical digital technologies, virtual reality technologies, analytics and data science. IT Professionals Australia is a division of Professionals Australia (formerly the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers, Australia) which is an organisation registered under the Fair Work Act 2009 representing over 25,000 Professional Engineers, Professional Scientists, Veterinarians, Architects, Pharmacists, Managers, Transport Industry Professionals, Translating and Interpreting Professionals as well as Information Technology Professionals throughout Australia. Professionals Australia is the only industrial association representing exclusively the industrial and professional interests of these groups. Professionals Australia (2021). Tech’s ‘woman problem’: more than just a pipeline issue. Copyright© 2021 Professionals Australia All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electrical, mechanical, photocopy, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from Professionals Australia. PAGE 2 CONTENTS ABOUT IT PROFESSIONALS AUSTRALIA 4 INTRODUCTION 5 THE CURRENT STATE OF PLAY 6 UNDER-REPRESENTATION 6 INCREASING DEMAND 6 WOMEN IN EMERGING TECHNOLOGY AREAS 6 GENDER PAY GAP 7 DIFFERENTIAL RETIREMENT SAVINGS FOR WOMEN IN IT 8 OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION 9 HIGH TURNOVER OF FEMALES IN IT WORKFORCE 9 DISCRIMINATION 10 CONTRIBUTING FACTORS 11 OVERVIEW OF REASONS FOR LEAVING THE STEM PROFESSIONS 11 WORKPLACE CULTURE 12 A CULTURE OF LONG WORKING HOURS AS AN OBSTACLE TO 13 MERIT-BASED ADVANCEMENT CAREGIVER RESPONSIBILITIES AS A FACTOR IN WOMEN LEAVING STEM 14 FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO LACK OF CAREER ADVANCEMENT AND 15 ATTRITION (1) BIAS IN CAREER-BUILDING ACTIVITIES 15 (A) LACK OF ACCESS TO PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT 17 (B) LACK OF ACCESS TO ROLE MODELS 18 (C) LACK OF ACCESS TO MENTORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES AND CAREER PLANNING DISCUSSIONS 19 (D) LACK OF ACCESS TO EXTENSION AND DEVELOPMENT WORK 20 (E) BARRIERS TO CERTIFICATION 21 (2) CAREER PENALTY ATTACHED TO WORKING PART-TIME 22 (3) CAREER DISRUPTION AND RETURN TO WORK 24 (4) CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS BIAS IN DECISION-MAKING AND 26 RECRUITMENT (5) DIVERSITY POLICY AND STRATEGY 28 (6) EXCLUSIONARY ACTIONS AND PRACTICES 29 (7) SEXUAL HARASSMENT 30 (8) GENDER STEREOTYPES - LOGISTICS VERSUS ASSUMPTIONS 31 (9) LACK OF ACCESS TO CHILDCARE 33 SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS 34 PAGE 3 “There’s no question that tech has a ‘woman problem’. Comprehensively addressing the under-representation of women in IT must be part of any plan to develop a diverse and sustainable IT workforce for the future. A workforce development strategy that goes beyond simply increasing the supply of female IT graduates and providing incentives for women to enter emerging tech areas - a strategy that includes increasing the participation and retention of women at the workplace level - has to be part of any effective long-term plan to ensure a strong IT capability into the future. If we don’t address the factors that contribute to women’s attrition from the IT workforce as part of a broader plan, any chance of increasing participation rates over the long-term, closing the IT gender pay gap, providing genuine equal opportunity in the workplace and addressing women’s differential retirement savings will be lost and we’ll be looking back in another ten years still wondering why we haven’t managed to do what’s needed to ensure employers have access to the broadest pool of high-quality tech talent.” JILL MCCABE PROFESSIONALS AUSTRALIA CEO PAGE 4 INTRODUCTION While ensuring a strong supply of work-ready IT graduates from universities is critical and many of the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) interventions and funding initiatives currently in place focus on this end of the pipeline, Professionals Australia sees the issue of removing the obstacles, barriers and biases which create disadvantage and operate as disincentives for women to remain in the IT workforce at the enterprise level as equally important. Our view is that numerical equality will always only be part of the solution to increasing and sustaining women’s participation in IT – the vital second part of the equation is addressing the issues that lead to women leaving the tech workforce. We see the focus on issues in the workplace and addressing the reasons professional women leave the IT workforce as a critical part of progress toward gender equity in IT without which all the effort and investment in working towards numerical equality will be wasted. We need to ensure not only that women’s IT education translates into workforce participation but into retention in the IT workforce over the longer-term. Put simply, there’s no question that tech has a ‘woman problem’. Comprehensively addressing the under-representation of women in IT must be part of any plan to develop a diverse and sustainable IT workforce for the future. A workforce development strategy that goes beyond simply increasing the supply of female IT graduates and providing incentives for women to enter emerging tech areas - a strategy that includes increasing the participation and retention of women at the workplace level - has to be part of any effective long-term plan to ensure a strong IT capability into the future. If we don’t address the factors that contribute to women’s attrition from the IT workforce, any chance of increasing participation rates over the long-term, closing the IT gender pay gap, providing genuine equal opportunity in the workplace and addressing women in IT’s differential retirement savings will be lost and we’ll be looking back in another ten years still wondering why we haven’t managed to do what’s needed to ensure employers have access to the broadest pool of high-quality tech talent. Rachel Thomas put it well when she said: “If you think women in tech is just a pipeline problem, you haven’t been paying attention ... Because of the high attrition rate for women working in tech, teaching more girls and women to code is not enough to solve this problem1.”This report sets out a broader strategy that outlines in detail what will solve the problem. JILL MCCABE PROFESSIONALS AUSTRALIA CEO PAGE 5 THE CURRENT STATE OF PLAY UNDER-REPRESENTATION Women continue to be seriously under-represented in the IT workforce. Females account for only 25 per cent of those with post-secondary IT qualifications in Australia2. Of the qualified IT population, 88 per cent (193,244 people) were in the labour force, either working or looking for work. Females made up 23 per cent of the Information Technology labour force, an increase of 1 percentage point since 20113. INCREASING DEMAND Australia’s ICT workforce continued its long-term pattern of growth with the number of ICT positions rising to 772,100 in 2019, up from 723,334 in 2018. While the latest Deloitte report estimates that COVID-19 led to a reduction of around 35,000 in the IT workforce between March and December 2020, they forecast the workforce will grow to around 928,700 by 2025. They project an average 3.1 per cent increase in IT workers over the next five years with over a million technology workers in Australia by 20274. WOMEN IN EMERGING TECHNOLOGY AREAS Cybersecurity is a good example of an emerging area in the IT sector that requires a greater pool of IT talent to draw on to meet Australia’s future needs. Cybersecurity Ventures estimates that with cybercrime likely to triple over the next five years, around 3.5 million job openings will be created by 2021. Their research shows that women represent only 20 per cent of the global cybersecurity workforce in 20185. Research also shows that a 12 per cent gender pay gap exists in the cybersecurity field for Generation X women earning between $50,000 and $99,000 and a 12 per cent gap for Baby Boomer women earning more than $100,000 compared to Baby Boomer men6. Artificial intelligence (AI) is another emerging technology area in which women are currently under-represented. It is critical that there is diversity in the teams behind AI because without it, there is a risk of embedding bias into the technologies. Current estimates suggest that women comprise around 32 per cent of the global AI workforce7. It should also be noted that AI is not one field - it is being deployed across industries and fields including finance, health, defence, education, infrastructure, mining and resources, manufacturing, agribusiness, law and cybersecurity so there are specialist roles emerging in each of these fields. PAGE 6 It is critical that women are part of the talent pool being educated, training and Key point: Gender diversity working in emerging areas such as video gaming, quantum computing, cryptography, robotics, blockchain, biometrics, wearable technologies, medical digital technologies, in IT is a mainstream virtual reality technologies, analytics and data science. Without diversity in the teams workforce development working in these areas and ensuring women are involved in the teams developing the issue. Skills shortages technologies, there is a risk of not only critical skills shortages and gender bias being embedded into the technologies, but also a widening of the gender pay gap.
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