5 days ago
Only 28.2% of STEM global workforce are women in 2024: WEF
Lani Rose R Dizon
Historically, women represent a much lower share of the STEM workforce than men, including in research positions across most countries. According to the World Economic Forum, women made up only 28.2 percent of the STEM global workforce in 2024. In non-STEM fields, women comprised 47.3 percent of the workforce. Among research, women held less than one-third of research positions, according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS).
In a study, UIS said the percentage of women science and engineering researchers and personnel in R&D professions worldwide in 2022 was 31.1 percent, an increase from 29.4 percent in 2012. However, there is a continued gender disparity in the R&D labour force.
There are regions in the world with almost gender parity among R&D researchers. For instance in 2022, women in Central Asia represent 50.8 percent of R&D researchers, while women in Latin America and the Caribbean comprise 45.3 percent of the R&D workforce.
However, gender imbalance is abysmal in other regions in the world, including East Asia and the Pacific and South and West Asia, where women represent 26.3 percent and 26.9 percent of the R&D personnel, respectively. All regions, except Central and Eastern Europe, experienced an increase in their share of women in R&D from 2012 to 2022.
According to Elsevier, in 2022, the FWCI in engineering of women was lower than that of men across all selected countries, showing a continued gender disparity among research. Diversity is crucial to innovation and creativity in engineering fields, where different perspectives and fresh viewpoints are invaluable, according to Australia-based Monash University.
Currently, women make up an estimated 16.5 percent of the global engineering workforce. Globally, women make up 28 percent of the engineering graduates. While countries have varying degrees of women representations in engineering, western societies like Australia, the UK and the US have shown similar statistics.
