Did you know that...

Even though, in the past decades we have observed a growth in the number of women in the fields of artificial intelligence, data science and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) , this number still remains much lower than that of men, despite the incentives through international campaigns in different countries to include women in the sector. According to the AI Now Institute, in 2019 only 24.4% of the total workers in the computer science domain were women, whose salaries were equivalent to 66% of the men. The 2020 Global Gender Gap Report of the World Economic Forum shows that only 26% of data science and AI workers are women. And in 2020 in the European Union only 17% of information and communication technology (ICT) specialists are women. Based on Linkedin data from 2018, the 2018 Global Gender Gap Index report from the World Economic Forum identified that 78% of users who reported having AI skills are male. The Forbes magazine of 2020, shows that the presence of women in the labor market in science and engineering is higher than the number of women seeking university degrees in these areas. Women represent 55% of new university graduates. And of this percentage just over a third are associated with women in the STEM areas. The World Economic Forum points out that only 3% of women choose courses in the ICT area and 8% choose engineering courses.

 

Regarding to the research area, data from 2018 of the European Commission show that, globally, women represent only 12% of AI researchers, while the 2019 Global AI Talent report points out that 18% of authors who participate in leading AI conferences are women. Moreover, only three (2006, 2008, 2012) of the 68 Turing Award winners, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for Computer Science, were women. In the academic community, women represent 18% of AI researchers at Oxford University with publications, while at Cambridge University this number drops to 15.6% in 2019. These issues and others related to overcoming the gender imbalances regarding to the access of young people and adults to career and personal development opportunities were debated in the webinar "Gender challenges in the labor market" held on March 12, within the scope of the O'Bias project. The event was supported by Inova-Ria and had the participation of Carla Eliana Tavares, president of the Commission for Equality in Work and Employment (CITE); Fátima Alves, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Port of Aveiro and Mário Rodrigues the Executive Committee of UNAVE - Association for Professional Training and Research of the UA and professor of the University of Aveiro. The graph below indicates the percentage of articles with at least one female author, while the table shows a comparison of Portugal and the European Union regarding to female employability and competence skills.