tributing factor to this challenge is women’s persistent underrepresentation.

Indeed, women who choose careers in ICT account for less than 2% of all women in the European labor market while their participation decreases with age (see https://bit.ly/2K4Imdv). Similarly disheartening is women’s involvement in innovation and entrepreneurship. For example, women in the EU, parallel to the situation in other parts of the world, constitute less than 25% of science and engineering professionals3 and only 14% of associate professionals, that is, those who perform research and operational tasks including supervision and control of technical and operational aspects of engineering operations (see https:// bit.ly/2GqWBqI for details on these statistics).

According to Catalyst, in 2014 women accounted for less than 1/3 of all employees in scientific research and development across the world ( averaged across regions, see https://bit. ly/2zIUJpA). In Australia, for instance, women engineers represent less than 13% of the labor force. In Japan, despite recent measures intended to improve gender ratios in STEM, neither the 20% target of women in science, nor the 15% target of women engineers had been met by 2016. Recent reports estimate that women comprise 39.8% of all researchers in China12 and refer to the phenomenon of the “ missing women in STEM.” 14 Similarly, in the U.S., women earning engineering, computer, and information sci-

Figure 1. Informatics education in Europe: Institutions, degrees, students, positions, salaries, key data 2012–2017, October 2018.

Source: Informatics Europe.

2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 2016/17

50%

45%

40%

35%

30%

25%

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%

(RU)Austria(UAS)Austria(RU)Belgium(UAS)Belgium(RU)Denmark(UAS)Denmark (RU)Estonia (UAS)Estonia (RU)Finland(UAS)Finland (RU)Ireland (UAS)Ireland
(RU)Netherlands(UAS)Netherlands (RU)Switzerland (UAS)Switzerland (RU)Germany Greece Latvia Romania Spain U.K. (UAS)Germany Italy

Table 2bis graph: women percentage of students in Informatics Bachelor’s programs (first year)

Figure 2. The effect of closing the gender gap in STEM on GDP per capita.

Source: European Commission. 6

• Improvement in GDP per capita by 2. 2 to 3.0%

• Improvement in GDP
by €610 to €820 billion
• Improvement in GDP
per capita by 0.7 to 0.9%

• Improvement in GDP
by € 130 to €180 billion
Rapid improvement in gender equality Slow improvement in gender equality

Im
pr
ovementin
GDP
perc
apita(
%)

5.0%

4.0%

3.0%

2.0%

1.0%

0.0%

2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050

Indicative list of non-EC related bodies, agencies, and associations promoting gender equality in ICT in Europe.

Association URL

ACM-Women Europe https://europe.acm.org/
Women in Research and Education
(WIRE)
http://www.informatics-europe.org/working-groups/
women-in-icst-research-and-education.html
Women in High Performance Computing https://womeninhpc.org/
Athena SWAN https://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charters/athena-swan/
Codess https://www.codess.net/
Women in Technology and Science https://witsireland.com/
Women in Games http://www.womeningames.org/
European Network of Women
in Leadership
https://www.wileurope.org/
European Network of Women Web
Entrepreneurs Hubs
http://wehubs.eu/
Startup Europe Leaders Club http://portal.opendiscoveryspace.eu/et/node/822017

European Platform of Women Scientists https://epws.org/