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EU Employment and social affairs commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou has made a speech outlining both the progress that women have made in the Information Technology sector and the substantial programme needed to bring them total equality in the industry. At a conference entitled 'Women and the information society', she began by quoting figures showing the increasing rôle of IT in European life. More than half of EU workers now use computers in their job with 40% of Europeans surfing the web. In the last five years 60% of jobs created were in the high-tech sectors. 'Digital literacy - the ability to use information technology - is now as important as being able to read and write' according to the commissioner.
She went on to mention some improvements that had already occurred. Women's usage of computers was now at 46% compared to the male total of 54%. New technology also offered the chance of telework (working at home via computer) which should enable women to balance home and work more effectively. However this rosy picture was belied by other figures quoted by Ms. Diamantopoulou. Sticking with telework she stated that, in practice more men (10%) than women (7%) had taken it up. In business and education the statistics are much worse. Two thirds of all jobs in the IT sector are held by men while only 15% of IT professsionals are female. In one Italian company, where 43% of the work force were women, a survey found that just one of 17 executives was female. 19% of PhDs. in computing in the EU go to women and the percentage going on to form their own businesses is even lower.
The next section of the speech detailed the measures that the EU was taking to remedy this state of affairs. The eEurope action plan, the employment strategy and the social policy agenda all have a priority of closing the skills and gender gap. In general 'A continued increase in the participation of women in the labour market is crucial to reaching the Lisbon goals of full employment and sustainable economic growth by 2010'. However, the commissioner stressed, all groups of women must be helped including those 'at risk of being excluded from the information society. Meaning older women, unemployed and low-income women, immigrant women and women with disabilities'. In education boys and girls must be equally equipped with skills and knowledge while stereotypes are combatted to encourage women to enrol in traditionally male areas such as computer programming and engineering.
These measures will not be enough to produce real equality, according to the commissioner until 'women reach the top ranks of the industry' and 'in the ownership, control and management in the ICT and media sectors'. While the EU commission was playing its part action was also needed by national governments, local authorities, employers and trade unions.
Reports , speeches and web pages mentioned on this page are available at :
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'Women and the information society': | |
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eHealth 2003 High Level Conference: |
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/ehealth/conference/2003/index_en.htm |
eEurope award goes to UK |
EU domain registry chosen |
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NHS Direct, the National Health Service interactive internet site has won the first eHealth award at an EU conference in Brussels. The Southampton-based site was chosen from 42 exhibitors by an independent jury. In closing the ceremony Commissioner Liikanen said: ' I congratulate the winners and the runners-up for their excellent applications. They all have great potential in meeting the win-win formula of eHealth: A more productive and efficient health service and better service to patients throughout Europe'.
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The European Commission brought its ambition to create a top level internet domain name closer recently when it selected EURID to be the registry for the new suffix. The new name, comparable to .org or .com, will now be registered with the world authority ICANN. The commission will consult Member States about speculative registrations of internet addresses, intellectual property, language and geographical concepts and the extra-judicial settlement of conflicts. .eu is expected to be operational by the end of this year |
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