NEWSROOM

With everyone conducting their live online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is high time for us to examine the gender equality in tech industry.

A new report by Arlington Research, commissioned by Kaspersky, found that there has been a progress for the inclusion of women in the tech industry. The report was based on an online survey of 13,000 respondents was conducted across 19 countries including Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Half of the respondents (53%) agree that the number of women in senior IT or technology roles in their companies has increased in the past two years. More than two-thirds (69%) of women in tech industry also agreed that their opinion will be respected, regardless of their gender. However, this is still not enough, as only 10% of women in tech work in a female-dominated team. Almost half (48%) women work in a male-majority team.

The imbalance might lead to the notion that while women are now accepted in the tech industry, their career progression is still slower than men – which is shared by 44% of women.

The consequences of gender bias in tech

The domination of men in tech industry hinders the overall progress of gender inequality in tech. In the Kaspersky report, more than a third (38%) of women claim that the lack of women in tech industry makes them wary of pursuing a career in the sector, a fact that could snowball should there be no intervention. 42% of the women say that better marketing is needed to encourage women to enter the industry.

Gender inequality in tech can result in unwanted consequences for women in general, as decision that is made in the industry can affect the whole society given that we live in a more and more technological advanced world.

British feminist author, journalist and activist Caroline Criado-Perez wrote about the danger of a male-dominated world in her book "Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men". She argues that men's domination in various fields have led into disastrous consequences for women, as these men often only think about the issues that concern them and neglect the seemingly obvious differences between genders.

"The stories we tell ourselves about our past, present and future. They are all marked – disfigured – by a female-shaped ‘absent presence’. This is the gender data gap," Perez wrote. "When we are designing a world that is meant to work for everyone we need women in the room."

Keeping women in the tech industry

A 2020 report by Accenture and Girls Who Code, titled “Resetting Tech Culture”, found that the rate at which women leave their tech roles is higher than men in tech or women in other types of job. The report found that 50% of women leave their tech roles by the age of 35, compared to approximately 20% in other types of jobs.

The Kaspersky report found that the high drop rate of women in tech might be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost half (47%) of women in tech believe that COVID-19 has delayed their career progression, considering the inequal gender dynamic at home, where women are still expected to take care of their home and family on top of having a fulltime job.

Almost half (48%) of women reported that maintaining work-life balance since March 2020 had been stressful. 60% of women globally said that they had done most of cleaning at home, while only 47% of the males said so. All these result in discouraging trend: 40% of women said that they had been held back in pursuing career changes due to pressures at home.

All in all, while more women are entering the tech industry, intervention must be done to keep them in the sector, to ensure the gender equality in tech in the future. Not only that more women in tech is beneficial for the industry, the gender balance will also help reduce the prevalence of gender data gap which affects women in society at large. Lastly, the progress of gender equality in tech can only be sustainable if it’s supported by progress of gender equality in the society, especially now that our work and home life have been intertwined due to the pandemic.

As a company in the tech industry, FromLabs also recognizes that we lack the presence of women in our team. We would like to take this occasion to announce that we gladly welcome more women applicants. Contact us at info@fromlabs.com to see whether we have an available position that might suit you.