Gender equality and technology enterprises
We have come a long way since women had to campaign for the vote in the 19th century and for equal pay in the 20th. Here in the 21st century we have a technology industry which is gender independent,... or is it?
Researchers at the Global Entrepreneurship Development Institute (GEDI) have discovered that just 2% of US technology startups are founded by females. Before you leap to the conclusion that the US should be ashamed of creating a business climate which results in such a low figure of opportunity for women, consider that the same researchers found the UK figure was an even more meagre 1%.
What isn't clear from this study is why these figures are so low. It could be prejudices and bias in the economic system of those countries, that banks are less willing to lend money to female entrepreneurs, for example, but if so, that would appear to be a very specific bias with regard to technology industries. GEDI has looked at economic conditions in general and whether or not they are favourable to female entrepreneur development and concluded that the USA heads the league table of favourable countries, followed by Australia, France, Germany and Mexico, with the UK coming in at a very creditable sixth.
Computer technology, whether it be software development, systems analysis, or website design, would seem to be ideally suited to be a gender neutral occupation, yet head counts of board members of high-tech companies across the globe show men represented more than women. A recent study by Google of its own global workforce found that just 30% were female, and within the technical positions, that number drops to just 17%.
Perhaps these imbalances will even out with time, given that today's university graduates have grown up with PCs and websites and especially with smart phones and networking. We would also like to point out that when the internet technology company Skill Zone Ltd was founded at the end of the 20th century, 50% of the entrepreneurs involved were female.
24th June 2014