> What’s clear is that there’s a vicious circle of perception and reality in terms of gender imbalance. And that schools, universities and industry are failing to show young people – and especially girls – the realities of technology jobs and careers in today’s world.
> Despite such exciting opportunities, girls aren’t considering technology as a career – partly because nobody is putting it forward as a possible option. While 33% of male respondents say they’ve had a career in technology suggested to them, the figure for females is only 16% – a glaring lack of advice that’s helping to reinforce the stereotype of a male dominated industry.
> Our research shows that their main reasons for not choosing to study STEM topics include: being better or gaining better grades in humanities or other
essay based subjects; not finding STEM subjects as interesting; STEM subjects not being relevant to the career they plan to choose; teachers not making STEM subjects appealing; and the need to get the highest possible grade, as this influences both university entrance and future career options.
So even this slide deck points to a difference in interests and aptitudes as a key driving factor in women focusing less on STEM careers.
> In term of the latter, women are more involved with healthcare than men – accounting for 77% of NHS employees8 – and, according to research from the US9 females make 80% of buying decisions about healthcare products and services.
Why are the authors of these slides not equally concerned with the under representation of men in health care?
When we talk about sexism in the workplace people will often say "it's a pipeline problem" -- we don't see women leaders because there aren't enough women juniors to apply for those positions.
> women are more involved with healthcare than men – accounting for 77% of NHS employees
Why are women under-represented in senior leadership positions in the NHS?
I don't know, but the original topic was whether women are actively discouraged from studying technology and pushed towards other fields by high school educators. There seems to be some evidence girls and women are picking other fields over technology due to their personal interests and talents.
The question of men disproportionately filling higher level roles within organizations is a separate question, and seems to affect other industries in addition to technology.
> 31% of males have learned about technology from their own research, against only 12% of females.
So a lot of male interest in technology is self driven.
This is a slide deck trying to show women are being unfairly denied a technology career, but then goes on to give a lot of evidence most of the discrepancy is due to self selection.
> What’s clear is that there’s a vicious circle of perception and reality in terms of gender imbalance. And that schools, universities and industry are failing to show young people – and especially girls – the realities of technology jobs and careers in today’s world.
> Despite such exciting opportunities, girls aren’t considering technology as a career – partly because nobody is putting it forward as a possible option. While 33% of male respondents say they’ve had a career in technology suggested to them, the figure for females is only 16% – a glaring lack of advice that’s helping to reinforce the stereotype of a male dominated industry.