What is the Root Cause of Gender Imbalance in STEM Organisations?

This short read article highlights the challenges of women in STEM.

The topic of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths (STEM) related roles is increasingly being discussed in various forums, seminars, conferences and more. There is a focus on gender balance and that there are many more men working in STEM than women.

Organisations are finding it difficult to recruit women in these disciplines and the discussion centres on the fact there simply aren’t sufficient numbers of female candidates coming through schools and further education.

So, you might think that’s easy to resolve – provide more places at university / colleges for young women to enter these educational disciplines. Another course of action would be to make sure that girls are being given the opportunity to learn subjects at school so that they can be confident enough to grow into STEM specialties.

This might help nurture and grow talent, and seed more women into STEM in future years. It doesn’t resolve the current issue but it certainly does build for future generations.

There are a number of organisations and groups that are specifically working on encouraging people into STEM opportunities and there is a focus on girls being given opportunities.

So that means the problem is resolved!

Not from what I hear. There seems to be a systemic issue in schools with girls being given the chance to engage in activities and subjects like the sciences, technology, and trades and engineering. It appears that some schools won’t invest in the equipment needed to allow pupils to undertake these subjects. And due to the school league tables, I’ve been told that girls are being ‘encouraged’ to attend home economics or other non-STEM related subjects purely to achieve numbers of pass rates and ensure the school rates high.

I haven’t seen any concrete evidence that this is fact but it does beg the question what is the root cause of there being insufficient women being able to enter STEM roles.

Whilst organisations might complain that there is an issue are they doing enough to help move this forward?

Are they sponsoring or buying equipment for schools?

Are they finding ways of supporting parents and teachers to encourage girls into STEM subjects?

Even if these opportunities aren’t made available in schools there are other ways of supporting e.g. night and weekend classes, internships, and more. There are many ways companies can help to move this issue forward.

What are the education boards and politicians doing to resolve the lack of women in STEM? Is this something that central government and education needs to resolve?

Paul Skovron is a diversity and inclusion specialist at 3In Consulting.

Image source – nc3t.com