There are some professions that just seem to favor one gender over another, and as many working women in Europe (and undoubtedly their American counterparts know), IT is definitely a boys club. Will it ever change? CIO Update takes a look.
Women in IT is not quite an oxymoron in Europe, but not enough is being done to encourage more women to enter the field, according to a survey just released by the The IT Job Board, a UK IT recruitment site. Only about a third (35 percent) of IT staff in Europe are women, according to the survey.
There are also significant pockets of unhappiness, based on the responses, with the current state of affairs. The survey found that 49 percent of women believe that working benefits and conditions in IT could be improved, and although there has been an increase in the number of women working in IT, 51 percent of women in the UK and 49 percent of women in Holland believe that working conditions are not equal for men and women. Over in Belgium, some 66 percent of women in the survey said they felt working conditions favored their male colleagues.
In the UK, the phrase “boys club” was given by survey respondents on several occasions, according to a release by IT Job Board, “and it is clear that many women find it hard being a female in such a male-dominated environment,” the company said.
Ninety percent (90 percent) of women across Europe believe that women do IT jobs just as well as their male counterparts and 81 percent of women polled believe that the industry should do more to encourage a mix of male and female employees in IT.
