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Issues in Gender Diversity and Equality in the UK
A. Bennaceur The Open University
Milton Keynes, UK
A. Cano Aston University
Birmingham, UK
L. Georgieva Heriot Watt University
Edinburgh, UK
M. Kiran Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Berkeley, CA, USA
M. Salama University of Birmingham
Birmingham, UK
P. Yadav University of Cambridge
Cambridge, UK
ABSTRACT
There has been a significant increase in the number of initiatives to
raise awareness of diversity-related challenges in technology world-
wide within the past decade. Multiple organizations now emphasize
a need for a close to 50%-50% male to female workforce distribu-
tion. Example of proposed activities include introducing quotas
for women on board positions, promoting equal opportunities for
employment in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math-
ematics) jobs and creating a woman-friendly work environment.
However, despite these efforts, the growth of number of women
working in STEM is still slow.
To understand the impact of various initiatives and how they
influence the work environment in universities in the UK, we con-
ducted a survey to record responses from multiple women groups,
so that we can identify the issues that they have been facing. This
paper presents the insights drawn from the survey, along with rec-
ommendations for STEM and computing fields in order to increase
female numbers in their programs. The survey presents qualitative
measures of initiatives addressing the gender gap in the UK. The
results show a clear need for prominent role models, mentoring,
and promoting engagement of women in STEM subjects from an
early age.
KEYWORDS
gender equality, diversity, current trends
1 INTRODUCTION
In recent years, gender diversity and equality have been emphasized
as essential to progress in technology [1, 18]. Diverse and inclusive
skills have been identified as beneficial for effective problem solv-
ing and leadership [12, 18]. In order to reduce stereotyping across
technology sectors, traditionally male-dominated industries have
been releasing statistical data on their workforce composition. Poli-
cies targeting better proportional representation of women, better
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GE’18, May 28, 2018, Gothenburg, Sweden
© 2018 Association for Computing Machinery. ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-5738-8/18/05.. .$15.00 https://doi.org/10.1145/3195570.3195571
engagement of employers, and higher commitment to countering
discrimination are being introduced. These include for example,
board quotas, the UK Equality Act (2010), cultural and diversity
initiatives, equal opportunities policies, quotas to encourage hiring
of more women in engineering. Steps towards encouraging women
into STEM from an early age have also been taken [14]
Historic female role models (for example Ada Lovelace, Marie
Sklodowska-Curie) have inspired events, awards, and fellowship
schemes (See for example [4, 7]). Contemporary female role mod-
els such as the Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Meyer and the Facebook’s
COO Sheryl Sandberg have introduced calls for more women-only
awards, events and fellowships to bridge the gender gaps and pro-
mote visibility of women in technology. We have witnessed an
explosion of focus groups, conferences and workshops providing
advice and collaborative platforms for women to learn work-force
building skills in order to successfully compete in male-dominated
fields.
Figure 1 describes the landscape which is currently influencing
career choices and career progression of women in STEM. Attitudes
and policies in markets, institutions, and households affect the com-
paratively low representation of women in STEM. Support groups
and tailored economic opportunities and opportunities for engage-
ment have been introduced in order to optimize the involvement
of women and improve gender diversity.
Women comprise 40% of the global work force. In the engineer-
ing sector, less that 10% of the work force comprises of women and
despite the numerous initiatives, the impact on numbers has been
low. Addressing the gender gap and ensuring equal participation
and representation of women remains challenging in engineering
and science. As a means to measure why the gap exists, studies
which measure the existence of implicit bias have been conducted.
For example, a study examined attitudes across committees hiring
for faculty positions [23]. In the study, two candidates (a man and a
woman) with identical qualifications were presented to the commit-
tees which were then asked whether they would hire the candidate
or not. The results showed that there is a clear preference to hiring
the male candidate. Further studies investigated how this bias can
be countered by looking at how job adverts can be designed to
attract the highest-qualified workforce and the best fit for the job
specification, regardless of the gender of the applicant [8]. However,
such efforts have also met criticism. Studies have identified gender
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2018 ACM/IEEE 1st International Workshop on Gender Equality in Software Engineering
GE’18, May 28, 2018, Gothenburg, Sweden P. Yadav et al.
Figure 1: Landscape in STEM
bias as attributed to cultural differences and differences in self-
concept, placing an emphasis on the self-awareness and self-image
of women as the most decisive factor [2, 6].
International studies indicate the need of promoting change of
attitudes from an early age for both boys and girls [15, 22]. In the
UK, for example, only 20% of the total number of students who
study computer science at GCSE level are girls. The number drops
to 16% at a degree level and beyond.
Studies have shown that a significant number of women leaves
engineering due to family issues, related to child-care or caring
responsibilities [13, 16, 17]. We argue that policies introduced at
the government level, should help support family, hard work and
ambition for nurturing young female talents in STEM. The drive
for women to push forward in STEM careers works two ways both
from employers and the employee’s perspective and will take time.
Awards and fellowships, exclusively for women can be perceived
negatively, creating the impression that they are easier to obtain,
based on gender and not on merit. In reality, for successful STEM
careers, women need family support, hard work and ambition and
they need to be recognized based on merit and not on gender.
1.1 Contributions and structure of the paper
In this paper, we, the ACM-women UK Chapter, present the syn-
thesis of a survey which aimed to identify significant factors that
affect the gender distribution in STEM.
We make the following contributions:
• We identify attitudes that need to change and propose recom- mendations for ensuring diversity across the tech industry
and academia.
• We review the impact of selected women-promoting initia- tives, which have been designed to encourage optimal gender
representation in STEM in the UK.
• We present statistics on perception of the importance of di- versity for the success of the organization (in both academia
and industry).
• We analyze attitudes of men and women towards equality, diversity, skill sets, and mentoring.
• We identify areas of improvement and propose targeted solutions, based on the aggregated responses of our survey.
The paper is organized as follows. The methodology is pre-
sented in Section 2. In Section 3, we identify significant issues
affecting women in STEM. We also discuss related work on sup-
porting women in STEM careers and discuss the importance of
equality, diversity, skill sets, and mentoring. We present our recom-
mendations and most significant findings in Section 4. Our goal was
to determine the extent of familiarity with gender awareness initia-
tives in STEM and to compare the attitudes of women in STEM to
the attitudes reported by alternative surveys for STEM [10, 18, 21].
2 METHODOLOGY
We distributed the survey electronically to organizations engaged
in STEM. The survey consisted of twenty questions addressing
issues for women in STEM, among the most significant of which
are diversity, role models and gender stereotypes. The age-range of
the survey respondents was 20-50 years; 62% of the respondents
were female. Participants were predominantly from the UK (80%),
the remaining 20 % were UK citizens, currently residing in Europe
and USA. The participants had occupations in diverse fields, repre-
sented as follows: Education 66%, Medicine 2%, IT and Computer
Science 35%, comprising of undergraduate, postgraduate, PhD, re-
search associates, and researchers, lecturers and senior lecturers.
The proportion of distribution among the STEM fields was as fol-
lows: Science 42%, Technology 57% and Engineering 38%. The total
number of respondents to the survey was 87.
3 ISSUES FOR WOMEN IN STEM
Diversity in STEM subjects and the importance of mentoring and
strong role models are recognized as integral to attracting more
women [10, 18, 19]. In this section, we assess the attitudes of our
survey respondents to diversity, role models, and gender stereo-
types.
3.1 Diversity
Gender-diverse teams perform better financially, particularly when
women occupy a significant proportion of top management po-
sitions [11]. The team dynamics and collegial relationships and
productivity are enhanced [10]. The need for diversity was strongly
represented in our survey responses. 87% of the respondents agreed
that diversity is important for a successful organization, 6% were
neutral, and 7% identified diversity as unimportant.
Global diversity awareness surveys report similarly high per-
centage of the need for gathering, analysing, and sharing data in
order to remove bias and increase opportunity [3, 20]. Inclusion
has been identified as a top priority.
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Issues in Gender Diversity and Equality in the UK GE’18, May 28, 2018, Gothenburg, Sweden
3.2 Role models
An absence of positive female role models and mentors is identified
as the likely reason for women feeling uneasy in male dominated
technology sectors [21]. Visible and effective role models are needed
to support women so that they can thrive and are retained in STEM
careers.
In our survey, we did not target gender similarity. We asked
respondents to assess their need for a mentor or role model, not
taking the gender of the mentor or role model into account. 53% of
our respondents stated that positive role models already play an
important role in their career, 47% of the respondents were positive
that suitably-selected influential role models have the capacity to
change their perceptions towards a career in a STEM field. 29% of
the respondents strongly agreed when asked whether they would
like to have a mentor, 32% agreed, and 18% indicated that they are
uncertain whether having a mentor will be beneficial. This clearly
shows that there is a need for a strong mentoring program and
for the presence of role models. Only a very small percentage of
the respondents indicated that they have already been allocated a
mentor at their place of employment. 18 % were unsure whether the
professional relationship that they have established with a senior
colleague is identifiable as a mentor-mentee relationship and 61%
of the respondents indicated that they would have wanted to have
a mentor at the beginning of their STEM career. A mentor was not
perceived as necessary by 13% of the surveyed professionals.
In addition to the absence of suitable role models, the assumed
lack of comparable skills is another likely reason for women "feeling
uneasy" in a male dominate fields. A worrying 19% of our survey
respondents indicated that according to their own perception there
is a difference in the skill sets that a male and a female employee
will bring to technology fields with equal education (the conviction
being that the male candidate will have better skills), and 39% were
unsure.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
De fin
ite ly y
es
Pro ba
bly ye
s
Pro ba
bly no
t
De fin
ite ly n
ot
R es
po nd
en ts
( %
)
Figure 2: “As a woman, do you feel uneasy in a male-
dominated technology sector?"
3.3 Gender stereotypes
It is assumed that women who have chosen to study and subse-
quently engaged in a career in STEM subjects are more resistant
to gender stereotypes as they have overcome barriers in formal
educational environment and at home [5]. Nevertheless, women in
STEM are acutely aware of the gender stereotypes from an early age.
The development of the academic self-concept begins in infancy
and unfolds its most significant impact(s) after primary school. Ex-
pectations based on gender and subsequent attributions of skills
and abilities do not use objective criteria. Frequently, stereotypical
evaluations both at home and at school do not correspond to ac-
tual achievements but rather rely on limiting beliefs, gender bias
and stereotypes (for example, the belief that girls are weaker in
mathematics) [5].
87% of our survey respondents agree that gender stereotypes,
including beliefs about the affinity of women to study, apply them-
selves to and subsequently excel in STEM subjects do exist in our
society. The respondents indicated that they needed to resist these
stereotypes and not let them affect their career progression and
their career choice.
Limiting beliefs about the difference in technology-related skill
sets, persist. 63% of the respondents to our survey replied that
they do not think that men and women bring the same skill set
to an organization after identical education and training. 77% of
respondents agreed that they feel uncomfortable if either males or
females exclusively dominate a workspace. This is an interesting
result, indicating the need for diversity at top level management
positions. Attitudes to diversity will need to change. Our survey
indicated that the introduction of quotas is not a way forward.
When asked whether there is a need for gender-based quota 65%
of the respondents disagreed. 82% agreed that there is need for
promoting STEM and diversity in education.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Str on
gly Di
sa gre
e
Dis ag
ree Ne
utr al
Ag ree
Str on
gly Di
sa gre
e
R es
po nd
en ts
( %
)
Figure 3: “Do stereotypes deter you from establishing a ca-
reer in STEM?"
3.4 Awareness of women-promoting initiatives in the UK
Various support groups promoting women in science exist in the UK,
e.g. Women in STEM, Girl Geeks, BCS-Women [9, 14, 24], see also
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GE’18, May 28, 2018, Gothenburg, Sweden P. Yadav et al.
Figure 4. They all encourage more innovation, entrepreneurship and
entrepreneurship. Our survey aimed to identify how well-known
each of these initiatives is.
Since we distributed the survey with an explanatory note, ACM-
Women and its activities were identified as known to 80% of the
respondents. This was closely followed by Athena Swan and Grace
Hopper, BCS-Women and Women who code.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
AC M
−W
At he
na S
wa n
G HC
BC S−
W om
en
W om
en w
ho C
od e
W om
En co
ur ag
e
Sc ie nc
e: It
is a
G irl T
hi ng
W IS
E
ST EM
et te
s W
ES
Fl os
sie
G ee
ke tte
s
Sc ie nc
eG rrl
Co de
F irs
t G irl
Ro bo
G irl s
W SE
T
Co de
ss
Sh e+
+
W iS
ET
W ES
T
Te ch
F ut
ur e
W IC
AT
W om
en R
oc k Sc
ie nc
e
G irl sg
ui di ng
G EC
R es
po nd
en ts
( %
)
Figure 4: Initiative Awareness in the UK
There was some support for the introduction of new laws by the
government to promote the number of females (See Figure 5).
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Ne ve
r
Oc ca
sio na
lly
Ve ry
Of ten
Alw ay
s
R es
po nd
en ts
( %
)
Figure 5: “Should there be new laws introduced by the gov-
ernment to promote the number of females?"
4 RECOMMENDATIONS
STEM provides numerous opportunities for career engagement, de-
velopment and progress for women. Based on the identified issues,
our survey results support the following recommendations:
(1) Create programs to encourage more girls to study engineer-
ing from an early age.
(2) Develop mentoring programs for school students such as
having engineers to come into primary schools and do talks,
so that positive role model and mentors are introduced early
on.
(3) Promote visibility of women as role models through diverse
social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, technology-
related forums, Youtube in a positive manner. Promote visi-
bility of women at science festivals and organized events for
school-age children.
(4) Build strong peer-support network for participants of events
and initiatives. Engage the participants in follow-up activi-
ties.
(5) Address barriers of isolation via mentoring in STEM. Pro-
mote successful women role models at the graduate level to
ensure that more women are retained in a career in STEM.
(6) New policies are needed to facilitate and allow women to
earn the respect of their peers and families and to encourage
the development of a positive self-concept of the woman
scientist.
With these recommendations in mind, our ACM-W professional
chapter (https://acmukwomen.acm.org) was established in 2014
to support women in pursuing computing related careers, finding
like-minded colleagues, and learning new skills in the UK. We hope
that others will join us in this endeavor.
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