There’s still a lengthy list of obstacles for women in Australia’s STEM workforce, despite more girls and young women studying the subjects in schools and universities.
This comes from a report released today by the University of South Australia, titled, The South Australian Academy for Gender Equity in STEM (SAAGES).
The report includes feedback and recommendations from 75 professionals and students working in or interested in the STEM sector who have engaged in a series of think tanks over the past 12 months.
Lead report author Dr Deborah Devis says the participant feedback demonstrates Australia has a long way to go to achieve gender equity in the STEM workforce.
“These obstacles raised by women working in the sector should be a red flag as they continue to exacerbate critical STEM industry workforce shortages across the country,” Dr Devis said.
The number one reason women cited for their decision to leave jobs in STEM was an unsupportive or hostile work environment.
Another major obstacle shown in the report was inflexible work hours and a failure among many employers to acknowledge that the burden of unpaid care work for children and older parents still falls disproportionately on women.
Women and non-binary people face many STEM workplaces that contain unconscious bias, perpetuating gender stereotypes, including the misplaced belief that women (especially mothers) have different skill sets to men.
Feedback from participants also showed a lack of female role models in senior leadership positions and inequitable language in the workplace and media that reinforce gender stereotypes such as placing an emphasis on ‘masculine’ technical skills over ‘feminine’ soft skills. There still seems to be attitudes throughout workplaces, communities and families as well which associate STEM careers with men rather than women.
“There are hundreds of ‘women in STEM’ programs across Australia but the impact of these programs is unclear”, said Dr Devis.
“We have seen a significant increase in girls studying STEM subjects in schools and undergraduate degrees, but only a small increase in postgraduate programs and young women pursuing STEM careers. The number of women holding senior management roles in STEM industries is also very low.”
According to the Australian Academy of Science, only 16 per cent of the STEM skilled workforce in Australia are women, while 90 per cent of women with a STEM qualification work in non-STEM related fields.
How to better support women in the STEM workforce?
In response to the report’s findings, the UniSA SAAGES taskforce produced specific recommendations to support women in three STEM groups: future employees, current employees and leaders.
To support future employees, the taskforce advises employers to offer mentoring, outreach positions, network building programs (including young entrepreneurs) and a focus on building relationships between students and companies.
For women currently in STEM careers, the advice notes that fertility policies, workplace flexibility, equal pay parental and evaluation of internal culture would have a big impact in retention.
Although the report warns that “companies should avoid creating a gender divide where only women are expected to take advantage of flexible work arrangements”.
And for supporting female leaders in STEM, the taskforce says employers should provide inclusive leadership training, rewards to equitable leaders, non-financial leadership incentives for women and increase men’s advocacy for women.
Report co-author, Dr Florence Gabriel, says diversity is essential for business success in the modern world.
“Diversity is not just an ethical concern or a box to tick. According to a recent study of 1000 companies worldwide, those in the top 25% for gender diversity were found to be 21% more likely to be more profitable and 27% more likely to be more creative,” Dr Gabriel said.
“These high-performing companies not only had more women on their staff; they also had a greater gender mix in their senior leadership.”
Dr Gabriel adds that, “It is also crucial that men advocate for women in the STEM workforce by actively supporting gender equity and promoting diversity and inclusion. It should be an entrenched belief, not an exercise in box ticking.”