{"id":17253,"date":"2021-06-11T11:40:21","date_gmt":"2021-06-11T08:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/?p=17253"},"modified":"2021-06-14T15:14:39","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T12:14:39","slug":"benefit-from-the-increase-in-girls-involvement-in-it-en","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/benefit-from-the-increase-in-girls-involvement-in-it-en\/","title":{"rendered":"How much will girls benefit from studying Computer Sciences?"},"content":{"rendered":"

IT is one of the major drivers of the Ukrainian economy.\u00a0<\/span><\/b>Latest data suggest that\u00a0its\u00a0share in Ukraine’s GDP has reached 5%, and its increase to 10% is one of the key goals of the Ministry\u00a0of Digital Transformation.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A\u00a0rapid development of the industry\u00a0demands\u00a0more\u00a0talent,\u00a0which\u00a0is\u00a0currently\u00a0scarce.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0According to GlobalLogic, one of the largest IT companies in Ukraine, the demand for IT\u00a0professionals\u00a0is growing by 30%\u00a0each year, but the number of new programmers\u00a0lags\u00a0by half. This may\u00a0slow down\u00a0the potential of the IT industry in Ukraine.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the number of students\u00a0majoring in Computer Sciences\u00a0is growing by 11%\u00a0annually,\u00a0only 20% of them are females.\u00a0<\/span><\/b>As a result, the Ukrainian IT industry, like the global one, is gender\u00a0unbalanced:\u00a025%\u00a0of IT\u00a0employees in Ukraine are women,\u00a0yet\u00a0most\u00a0of them\u00a0work\u00a0in non-technical\u00a0jobs, such as project managers,\u00a0HR,\u00a0and marketing specialists.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Studying\u00a0Computer Sciences\u00a0is\u00a0often associated with\u00a0math.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0However, the data show that there is no statistically significant difference in the average scores of\u00a0ZNO, a nationwide examination to enter higher education,\u00a0in\u00a0Mathematics\u00a0between girls and boys. In addition, girls\u00a0choosing to major in CS\u00a0have higher\u00a0ZNO\u00a0scores in Ukrainian\u00a0language\u00a0and English. Therefore, the difference in mathematical abilities cannot explain the\u00a0low\u00a0share of girls in\u00a0CS\u00a0programs.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The choice of girls\u00a0is\u00a0often\u00a0influenced by gender stereotypes about\u00a0STEM jobs, opinion of parents, relatives,\u00a0peers,\u00a0and teachers,\u00a0as well as\u00a0lack of self-confidence.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gender balance\u00a0can\u00a0impact organizations\u00a0financially.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0Research shows that companies with gender-balanced teams have higher sales and profits. For Western customers, on whom the Ukrainian IT industry is mostly focused, the gender composition of\u00a0project\u00a0teams is becoming more and more important.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The peculiarity of the Ukrainian IT sector is that\u00a0it offers much higher\u00a0salaries\u00a0than other\u00a0industries.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0For\u00a0women\u00a0who are\u00a0interested in innovation, ready to constantly learn and integrate into the global community, employment in IT can become\u00a0a\u00a0decent\u00a0option for greater financial independence. We calculated that even\u00a0in junior roles\u00a0in IT\u00a0remuneration\u00a0is three times higher (+15.3 thousand UAH per month).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, the gender pay gap in IT is 11 percentage points\u00a0less than the national average.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0In other words, a small positive impact on the economy from attracting more women\u00a0into\u00a0IT could\u00a0be achieved through a smaller pay gap in an industry where\u00a0compensations\u00a0are already much higher than the national average. We estimate that the Ukrainian economy\u00a0would\u00a0gain up to\u00a032.7 million\u00a0USD\u00a0from this.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To make CS programs\u00a0popular\u00a0among girls, we suggest that the authorities take the following steps:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Update government\u00a0labor market\u00a0demand\u00a0forecasts\u00a0for\u00a0IT professionals based on which the number of\u00a0places in universities is determined. The current\u00a0forecast\u00a0underestimates\u00a0the real demand\u00a0for IT talent\u00a0at least by half.<\/span> 2.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Suggest public universities to change the names of educational programs and disciplines to more informal, modern and gender neutral.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Encourage businesses to\u00a0actively promote\u00a0of IT education among schoolchildren interested in information technology.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    IT is one of the major drivers of the Ukrainian economy.\u00a0Latest data suggest that\u00a0its\u00a0share in Ukraine’s GDP has reached 5%, and its increase to 10% is one of the key goals of the Ministry\u00a0of Digital Transformation.\u00a0 A\u00a0rapid development of the industry\u00a0demands\u00a0more\u00a0talent,\u00a0which\u00a0is\u00a0currently\u00a0scarce.\u00a0According to GlobalLogic, one of the largest IT companies in Ukraine, the demand for IT\u00a0professionals\u00a0is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33006,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[403,197,143],"tags":[601,603],"experts":[448,421,450],"news_type":[140],"class_list":["post-17253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-capital","category-research-list-en","category-home-news-en","tag-human-capital-en","tag-labour-market-en","experts-victoria-yuzkiv-eng","experts-oleksandra-kobernik-en","experts-anastasiya-robeyko-eng","news_type-researches"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17253"},{"taxonomy":"experts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/experts?post=17253"},{"taxonomy":"news_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_type?post=17253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}