NotesFAQContact Us
Collection
Advanced
Search Tips
Back to results
ERIC Number: ED503992
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2007-Mar-29
Pages: 45
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
ICTs and Gender. OECD Digital Economy Papers, No. 129
van Welsum, Desiree; Montagnier, Pierre
OECD Publishing (NJ1)
This document provides an overview of the gender distribution of ICT and ICT-related employment in OECD countries, and ICT employment patterns are contrasted with overall employment to highlight differences. The authors discuss participation in ICT-related education and training, and differences in ICT access and use by gender. Overall, participation rates of women in employment tend to be significantly lower than those for men, although their labour market participation is increasing in most countries. In general, there is a lower share of women in managerial positions, but a higher share than men in many professional occupations, especially in health care and education. In contrast to these general patterns, the gender distribution of ICT employment is an outlier in terms of both women's participation and shifts in the share of women in ICT-related employment. Women have low shares of ICT-specialist employment and these shares rarely show an increase. Among ICT-using occupations women tend to have higher shares of office and secretarial occupations and lower shares in scientific and professional ones. Women have increased their share in higher education, across most areas of education, particularly in the arts, education and health-related education. However the share of women remains low in engineering and even lower in computer science. Although informal assistance from colleagues and learning-by-doing are important ways of acquiring computer skills for all, for women more formal types of training courses may be relatively more important than for men in some countries. ICT access by women tends to lag that of men: although gaps are generally declining, they remain large in older age groups, and in areas of newer technologies. There are also differences in from where men and women access the Internet. Men are more likely to access from both home and work in many countries; women are more likely to access from educational establishments. Women are more likely to engage in shopping and health-related activities; men are more likely to play games and visit sports pages. These differences are present for all age groups. This analysis suggests that for both equity and efficiency reasons gender differences in ICT occupations, education, access and use need to be addressed, that further, more detailed, analytical work on the evolution of ICT occupations, education and use should be undertaken and that the effects of policy on women and ICTs should be analysed in detail. (A bibliography is included. Contains 9 footnotes, 36 figures and 3 tables.)
OECD Publishing. 2, rue Andre Pascal, F-75775 Paris Cedex 16, France. Tel: +33-145-24-8200; Fax: +33-145-24-8500; Web site: http://www.oecd.org/publications http://www.sourceoecd.org
Publication Type: Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
Identifiers - Location: Asia; United States
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A