Women and Digitalization

 

GenTIC signed a collaboration agreement with the Spanish National Observatory of Telecommunications and the Information Society (ONTSI) with the purpose of reviewing the current state of the art around the complex issue of gender inequalities and biases in the digital society. The initiative involved the development of a research study to analyse data on women’s life trajectories in relation to ICT/STEM as well as other gender inequalities in relation to existing digital gaps both in the Spanish and international contexts.

The study is divided into four sections:

  • The three digital gender gaps, which include: the access to digital tools and infrastructures (first digital gap); the acquisition of digital skills and differences in the use of technologies (second digital gap); and the benefits linked to Internet use as well as the implications that digital participation has in relation to citizenship rights (third digital gap).
  • The transformations of digitization in the labor market: creation and destruction of jobs and identification of the professional skills associated with such digitization.
  • Gender biases in participation and leadership linked to artificial intelligence, Big Data, and Machine Learning.
  • The sociocultural, institutional, and psychosocial conditions that explain the unequal distribution of roles and responsibilities between men and women, as well as some of the interventions implemented by the educational and business sectors to promote ICT and STEM career interests among girls and young women.

Finally, the researchers offer new recommendations for policy and practice.

 

Start date:  1 March 2019 – End date: 31 December 2019

Principal Investigator: Milagros Sáinz (Gender and ICT, IN3 – UOC)

Research Team:

Lídia Arroyo (Gender and ICT)

Cecilia Castaño (Complutense University of Madrid)

 

Results:

The results of the research study by Milagros Sáinz, Lídia Arroyo and Cecilia Castaño are available in the publication Mujeres y digitalización. De las brechas a los algoritmos [Women and digitalization. From gaps to algorithms]. Madrid: Instituto de la Mujer & Red.es. doi:10.30923/MujDigBreAlg-2020

 

Funding body:

National Observatory of Telecommunications and the Information Society (ONTSI), Red.es (Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation)

 

Related links:

http://www.inmujer.gob.es/actualidad/noticias/2020/Julio/SociedadDigital.htm

https://gender-ict.net/2020/07/new-publication-on-the-digital-gender-gaps-over-the-life-course-and-the-challenges-of-digitalization-with-a-gender-perspective/