As digital transformation permeates more deeply into daily life, the equal participation of women in shaping digital transformation becomes more urgent. Women represent more than half of the global population, and an innovative and inclusive digital economy and society cannot be achieved if a significant share of society is excluded. Yet consistently and across OECD countries, women are underrepresented in information and communication technology (ICT) specialist jobs. They also contribute to significantly fewer ICT-related patents and start fewer ICT businesses. Action is needed to encourage women to develop the skills needed to work in ICT and digital-intensive sectors, nurture female entrepreneurship and help women to become ICT inventors. In so doing, policy makers can push out the digital innovation frontier, harnessing its important productivity-enhancing benefits.
OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2024 (Volume 2)
Abstract
Digital transformation provides new avenues for the empowerment of women and girls and can contribute to greater gender equality. The Internet, online platforms, mobile phones and digital financial services offer women and girls “leapfrog” opportunities to earn additional income, enhance employment prospects and access knowledge to help bridge gender divides. In turn, integrating more women and other underrepresented groups into ICT development will bring to bear the diverse perspectives needed to create a more inclusive digital future.
Significant progress has been made in the last decade in closing the gender gap in access to and use of the Internet across OECD countries (OECD, 2024[1]). The gender gap in Internet use is below 3 percentage points across almost all OECD countries. In many countries, the percentage of women using the Internet now exceeds that of men (OECD, 2024[1]). Many countries still have bigger gaps between men and women aged 55 to 74, but the differences have significantly narrowed (OECD, 2024[2]). Gender differences in the use of online activities such as interacting with the government, purchasing on line and using e-banking, among others, are also minimal.
While there is much to celebrate about the reduction of digital gender divides, the road to achieving gender equality is long. There is also always the risk that rather than helping close digital divides for women and girls, technological advances could exacerbate them. Women’s participation in the development of ICT remains alarmingly low (OECD, 2024[3]). Fewer female professionals have artificial intelligence (AI) skills, and while, on average across the OECD, men contributed to about 90% of the scientific publications on AI, less than 40% were co-authored by women in 2023 (OECD, 2024[4]).
ICT skills offer opportunities for entrepreneurship and innovation, but men outnumber women among inventors and often female start-up founders receive less funding (OECD, 2023[5]; OECD, 2018[6]). Women’s participation in shaping digital transformation is essential because powerful general-purpose technologies, such as AI, will have far reaching impacts. As a result, they may reinforce harmful stereotypes if women do not have a seat at the table (UNESCO/OECD/IDB, 2022[7]).
As digital transformation permeates more deeply into daily life, the equal participation of women in shaping it becomes more urgent. Women represent more than half of the global population, and an innovative and inclusive digital economy and society cannot be achieved if a significant share of society is excluded.
This Spotlight maps gender gaps and their potential causes throughout life to highlight areas of policy that might harness the full potential of women for digital innovation. In addition, it disentangles gender gaps in the digital innovation ecosystem to identify areas in which women lag, as well as opportunities for them to catch up. The Spotlight then explores how policy can support a more innovative and inclusive digital future.
Everyone needs a range of skills – foundational, ICT and complementary – to use digital technologies effectively in life and at work (OECD, 2019[8]). Yet gender gaps in skills are particularly troubling. Gender-based stereotypes in technical fields emerge as early as the age of six (Master, Meltzoff and Cheryan, 2021[9]) and influence education choices and career aspirations.
According to the 2022 OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey,1 by the age of 15 less than 1.5% of girls on average across the OECD aspire to become ICT professionals, compared to almost 10% of boys (OECD, 2024[10]). Moreover, the percentage of girls expecting to work in the ICT sector exceeds 3% in only two countries. In contrast, the percentage of boys aiming to become ICT professionals exceeds 15% in several OECD countries. Even among the best performing students in mathematics or science in the OECD, boys are often more likely than girls to aspire to become an engineer or a scientist (OECD, 2024[10]).
Perhaps one reason for this difference is that high school boys tend to evaluate their math competences higher than girls with similar test scores (Wang and Degol, 2013[11]; Zander et al., 2020[12]). Their competency assessment is also less affected by lower grades in school (Rittmayer and Beier, 2008[13]; Zander et al., 2020[12]).
Girls’ comparative advantage in reading is sometimes evoked as another potential explanation (Breda and Napp, 2019[14]). Indeed, data from the 2022 PISA survey show that 15-year-old girls significantly outperform boys in reading. Meanwhile, gender gaps in mathematics and science are on average relatively small. This small gap belies the argument that boys are biologically predisposed to mathematics and science. Girls who are competent in mathematics are likely to be even better in reading, leading to a possible diminished self-perception of numerical skills and an inclination to study humanities.
Parents have also traditionally played a role in students’ educational choices and career aspirations. Responses to the 2022 PISA survey reveal that parents more frequently expect their sons rather than their daughters to pursue mathematics-related careers (OECD, 2024[10]).2 At the same time, teachers can reinforce traditional gender stereotypes regarding the appropriate roles for men and women through conscious or unconscious biases, teaching methods, extracurricular activities or textbook choices (OECD, 2023[5]).
Gender stereotypes related to culture can also contribute to girls’ belief in their inability to succeed in mathematics – so-called self-efficacy – despite comparable performance (Zander et al., 2020[12]). This belief has been shown to be a good predictor of future achievements and girls’ field of study (Sakellariou and Fang, 2021[15]). Low self-confidence is reinforced by relatively better performance in other fields and the perception that such skills are innate rather than learnt. The perception of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields as inherently masculine is also a harmful stereotype that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy (Makarova, Aeschlimann and Herzog, 2019[16]). If girls do not choose engineering or computer science because they are perceived as “male” fields, there will be fewer female professionals. This, in turn, reinforces the image of these fields as masculine.
As girls continue their education, they are less likely to study STEM fields in tertiary education (OECD, 2024[17]). Across the OECD, on average only one-third of 2021 STEM graduates in tertiary education were women, although this headline figure masks some important differences. In almost all OECD countries, there are either more female graduates or a comparable number of men and women graduating in natural sciences, mathematics and statistics. Furthermore, nearly two-thirds of graduates in biological and related sciences are women (OECD, 2024[18]).3 On the opposite end of the spectrum, only 22.7% of ICT degree holders in 2021 were women (OECD, 2024[17]).
Important disparities exist among OECD countries. Women represent one in three ICT graduates in Greece, Israel and Sweden, compared to one in eight in Belgium, Chile and Spain. In terms of ICT skills, more than twice as many young men than women aged 16-24 knew how to program across the European Union in 2023 (OECD, 2024[19]).4
Gender differences evident in education extend to the labour market. Researchers from the United States found that women’s lower self-confidence contributes to lower salaries at workforce entry (Sterling et al., 2020[20]). As women leave education and enter the workforce, they tend to face higher expectations, harmful stereotypes and a toxic work culture more often than their male counterparts (OECD, 2018[6]; Paul, Sultana and Bosu, 2019[21]; Kenny and Donnelly, 2020[22]). A study run in Canada and the United States showed that men who had a strong implicit association of STEM with masculinity socialised with fewer female colleagues. Meanwhile, women with fewer male relationships reported greater career misfit and disengagement (Cyr et al., 2021[23]). Such stereotypes may have led some women to leave their STEM careers.
Across OECD countries, the percentage of men working as ICT specialists is three to seven times higher than the percentage of women working in such positions with the exception of Türkiye where the share is two times higher (Figure 2.S.1).5 Gaps of a similar magnitude are evident among partner economies for which data are available (Croatia and Malta), with slightly smaller gaps in some others (Bulgaria and Romania). Countries with the highest share of ICT specialists in the total workforce, such as Israel, Estonia, Ireland and Sweden, also have the highest proportion of female ICT specialists. However, even these countries show a persistent and significant gap, with only 3-4% of women occupying those positions compared to 9-12% of men.
Overall, women represent between 11% (Czech Republic) and 24% (Israel and Estonia) of ICT specialists in the OECD countries for which data are available. Out of the entire ICT specialist workforce, 17% are women in the European Union and 23% in the United States. Women’s low participation in ICT careers can be observed even in Nordic countries, which are known for higher gender equality (Corneliussen, 2021[24]). It also contributes to the gender wage gap as certain ICT specialist occupations, such as those related to artificial intelligence (AI), enjoy a substantial wage premium (OECD, 2023[25]).
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and accelerated the need for ICT skills across the economy; the growing number of jobs in the ICT sector could increase employment opportunities for women. In 2020, the number of female ICT specialists in the European Union increased by 12%, which is nearly twice the average annual growth in the last decade. In the same year, the growth rate of the male ICT workforce reached 4%, which corresponds to its average annual growth. The number of women working as ICT specialists is growing faster than the number of men. However, if average growth rates persist, it will take a lifetime (almost 90 years) to reach parity. Efforts to boost the number of women in the ICT sector are important, including by increasing transparency and reducing biases in recruitment.
Proportion of ICT specialists in total employment, by gender, 2023
Note: ICT specialists correspond to International Standard Classification of Occupations 2008 (ISCO08): 133, 215, 251, 252, 351, 352 and 742.
Source: OECD (2024[3]), “Share of ICT task-intensive jobs”, OECD Going Digital Toolkit, https://goingdigital.oecd.org/indicator/40 (accessed on 2 July 2024).
Goal congruity theory offers a compelling framework to help understand the origins of the relative lack of women in ICT careers (Diekman et al., 2016[26]). Goal congruity theory rests on the premise that people favour careers in alignment with their “communal goals” (e.g. altruism, helping the community and collaborating with others) and their “agentic goals” (e.g. self-fulfilment, recognition and high income). While people value both, women tend to value communal goals more and men tend to value agentic goals more (Diekman et al., 2016[26]).
ICT professionals are sometimes portrayed as antisocial, introverted and solitary (Jarreau et al., 2019[27]; Dou et al., 2020[28]). It is therefore not surprising that careers in those fields are perceived as not offering opportunities to support community projects and engage with others. The media often reinforce this stereotype, frequently portraying female scientists as lonely heroines (Kool, Azevedo and Avraamidou, 2022[29]). The misalignment between personal goals and the perception of ICT-related careers may discourage some women from STEM studies.
However, perceptions are changeable. Research shows that demonstrating the ways in which ICT-related jobs can serve communal goals could be a successful strategy to attract more women into STEM careers (Brown et al., 2015[30]). Harvey Mudd College is one of the leading undergraduate engineering programmes at non-doctorate granting institutions in the United States. It increased the number of computer science graduates from 12% to 40% in five years by emphasising real-life applications at early stages in the curriculum. This created a female community and enhanced the confidence of female students (Jivani, 2020[31]). Many non-profit organisations also attract women by promoting social challenges that can be solved with ICT-related skills, for example Girls Who Code or Engineers Without Borders (McCart, 31 August 2016[32]; Girls Who Code, 2024[33]).
Looking ahead, it is important to take steps to change the perception of ICT careers as inherently male, including by emphasising related “communal goals”. For example, the ICT community could award grants for research focusing on societal challenges and foster mentorship programmes. In the workplace, connecting ICT specialists and scientists with the beneficiaries of their work could reinforce work engagement. Changing the perception of STEM fields could likewise have a positive impact on both female representation and on minorities (Davis et al., 2022[34]). Given the shortage of ICT professionals, reframing STEM fields could have a positive impact on the entire economy. Beyond scientists and engineers, recent data suggest that a similar approach emphasising societal aspects of the work could also improve representation of female entrepreneurs (Folberg et al., 2023[35]).
Innovation is a fundamental driver of digital transformation, pushing out the frontier of what is possible and driving job creation, productivity and sustainable growth. Digital innovation gives rise to new and novel products and services, and also creates opportunities for new business models and markets. In addition, it can drive efficiencies in the public sector and beyond.
In the digital innovation ecosystem, women represent a smaller share of researchers, inventors and entrepreneurs (OECD/European Union, 2017[36]). The total early-stage entrepreneurial activity rate varies between countries and regions. It reaches 30.2% for women in Chile (where job scarcity is the biggest driver for female entrepreneurs) compared to 2.4% in Poland (GEM, 2024[37]; GEM, 2022[38]). Women who do start businesses often face socio-cultural gender bias when raising capital (Breschi, Lassébie and Menon, 2018[39]; EIF and Invest Europe, 2023[40]).
Innovation outcomes benefit from diversity through the inclusion of a variety of perspectives. Studies have shown positive effects from mixed teams on innovation performance (Dai, Byun and Ding, 2019[41]; Wikhamn and Wikhamn, 2020[42]). However, negative stereotypes, discrimination and difficulties in accessing financing, as well as weak connections to entrepreneurial networks, are key barriers to female entrepreneurship (Planes-Satorra and Paunov, 2017[43]; OECD, 2023[5]). Researchers estimate that greater participation of women and minorities in innovation could increase gross domestic product per capita in the United States by 0.6% to 4.4% (Cook, Gerson and Kuan, 2022[44]). Furthermore, closing the gender patent gap could lead to an increase of 2.5% of gross domestic product in the United States (Hunt et al., 2012[45]).
Gender differences exhibited by the fields of study of girls and boys are also evident in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Women who start businesses are predominantly active in sectors such as education and retail. However, they are underrepresented in the ICT sector that benefits from significant venture capital (VC) interest. Data from Eurostat indicate that women across the European Union represent 18% of the self-employed in the ICT sector compared to 34% in the entire economy (Eurostat, 2024[46]). Among those self-employed with employees, the percentage of women drops to 12%. Generally, female entrepreneurs differ from their male counterparts in that they are less likely to have employees or expect their business to grow (Halabisky, 2018[47]).
VC investments are an important driver of digital innovation. However, in the last two decades, on average only 6% of VC-funded start-ups in digital-related activities were founded by women (only). Moreover, 15% were founded by at least one woman on average in OECD countries (Figure 2.S.2).6 Australia stands out with over 11% of all-female founder teams; more than 23% of all VC-funded start-ups included at least one woman.
Share of VC-funded start-ups in digital-related activities with female founders, 2000-20
Notes: The OECD Start-up Database combines data from Crunchbase and Dealroom, two commercial providers of firm-level data and VC deals. It contains information on start-ups founded between 2000 and 2020, their founders and investors. The database was developed following the methodology described in Greppi (2022[48]).
Source: OECD (2024[49]), “Share of VC-funded start-ups in digital-related activities with female founders”, OECD Going Digital Toolkit, based on the OECD Start-up Database, https://goingdigital.oecd.org/indicator/36 (accessed on 26 October 2023).
AI has been a key driver of digital innovation in recent years. AI-related start-ups have flourished in tandem, although female participation appears limited (Box 2.S.2). Researchers analysed VC investments in AI start-ups in the United Kingdom between 2012 and 2022 (Wajcman, Young and De Miguel Velazquez, 2023[50]). All-female start-ups accounted for 4.9% of all VC deals and companies with at least one female represented nearly a quarter of all deals. Of all AI start-up deals, 2.1% went to female-only start-ups and a fifth to companies with at least one female founder.
To reap the full benefits of AI, women and individuals from diverse groups must participate in its development and deployment. Although progress has been made towards greater diversity, men still dominate AI research and development. In 2023, just over one in four researchers publishing on AI worldwide was female (OECD, 2024[4]). While the number of publications in academic journals co-authored by at least one woman is increasing, in 2023, women contributed to 59% of AI publications worldwide, while over 90% listed at least one man as a co-author.
Notes: Gender identification relies on name classifiers. To identify gender, Elsevier assigned a gender value only to those authors in the Scopus dataset for whom the algorithm returned a gender probability of >85%.
Source: OECD (2024[4]), “Live data: AI research”, OECD.AI Policy Observatory, https://oecd.ai/en/data?selectedArea=ai-research&selectedVisualization=number-of-research-publications-in-ai-by-gender-and-country (accessed on 2 July 2024).
Even more strikingly, women are the sole authors of only 8% of AI publications, while 41% are penned by men alone worldwide. In OECD countries, women contribute to about half of all AI publications. Analysis at the country level also reveals disparities. In Latvia, 59% of AI publications are authored by at least one woman, followed by Italy, Lithuania and the United States. Conversely, in Costa Rica only 14% of AI publications are authored by at least one woman and in Luxembourg and the Czech Republic the share is only about one in four (Figure 2.S.3).7
AI developers who are women are an even smaller minority than AI researchers. A 2022 survey of Stack Overflow users (a popular platform for knowledge sharing among developers and computer programmers) shows that slightly over 4% of respondents are women. However, countries like Belgium, Denmark and Norway stand out for having a higher, but modest, share of female AI developers (OECD, 2024[51]).
Access to finance is often an important barrier to female entrepreneurship. Findings from the United Kingdom show that AI firms with all-female founders raised on average six times less capital than firms with all-male founders. In comparison, female-founded start-ups across all fields received four times less capital. Overall, all-female teams received 0.4% of all capital invested in AI start-ups while all-male teams received nearly 80%.
Research also suggests the gender gap in VC funding could result from a quasi-absence of female investors (Balachandra, 2020[52]). Given that VC investors typically influence the culture and products of the companies in which they invest, this means relatively more male influence on new firms overall (Wajcman, Young and De Miguel Velazquez, 2023[50]). Moreover, decision makers in technology companies are mostly male, with women representing only 18% of C-suite leaders in AI companies and top start-ups worldwide in 2019 (UNU/UNU-CS/EQUALS, 2019[53]). In the United Kingdom, only 2% of VC firms and funds have a majority of female decision makers (Wajcman, Young and De Miguel Velazquez, 2023[50]).
Patents have been shown to increase the chances of VC investment and the amount of funding (Comino, Manenti and Thumm, 2019[54]). Yet women are also underrepresented among ICT inventors (Figure 2.S.4).8 In 2021, the United States (18%) had the highest share of female ICT inventors, followed by Canada (15%). In contrast, the Czech Republic, Mexico and Norway had the lowest share of female ICT inventors (4%). For comparison, female inventors across OECD countries averaged 13%, ranging from 7% in Austria, Hungary and Slovakia to 23% in Portugal.
Share of ICT-related IP5 patent families and inventors, by gender, 2018-21
Notes: Data refer to the share of IP5 patent families in the ICT-related technologies, by earliest priority date, and to the share of woman in total inventors of IP5 patent families in the ICT-related technologies, weighted by the number of families, by earliest priority date, corrected using a three-year moving average.
Source: OECD (2024[55]), STI Micro-data Lab: Intellectual Property Statistics (database), http://oe.cd/ipstats (accessed on 28 June 2024).
Between 2011 and 2021, the average percentage of female inventors in the ICT sector grew from 8% to 9%.9 On average across the OECD, only 4% of ICT-related patent families were invented by women (only) and 20% were invented by a team including at least one woman in the period 2018-2021. In the Czech Republic, as many as 95% of patents were invented uniquely by men, while Australia had the highest share of all-female invented patents (15%).
Could discrimination be hindering female innovators? A study in the United States comparing patent grant rates of female inventors showed a lower success rate for female inventors with gender-specific names compared to female inventors with gender-neutral names. This suggested that some bias against women is introduced during patent examination (Schuster et al., 2020[56]). Moreover, female copyright registrations for machine-readable works or computer programs in the United States for 1978 to 2020 reveal that only about 13% listed female authors, one of the lowest shares of the categories analysed (United States Copyright Office, 2021[57]). In addition, research suggests that the women who succeed in receiving patents are less likely than men to reap financial rewards from intellectual property rights (Caviggioli, Colombelli and Ravetti, 2023[58]).
National strategies, well-designed policy initiatives and targeted educational programmes can help encourage more women to pursue ICT careers and become ICT inventors. In this way, women can contribute to digital innovation and its important productivity-enhancing benefits. While a range of policies can support gender equality, this section outlines three key areas in which policy action can be particularly helpful in harnessing the potential of women for digital innovation: closing the ICT skills gap; promoting female entrepreneurship in ICT and related sectors; and catalysing female ICT innovators and inventions.
Closing the ICT skills gap
OECD countries have been successful in removing barriers to connectivity for women, and they can also empower women and girls by providing opportunities to obtain the range of skills needed to thrive in a digital world (i.e. foundational, ICT and complementary skills). In the early years, curricula must overcome gender biases and stereotypes regarding math and science. In the middle years, girls and young women should be actively encouraged to undertake STEM studies, including through publicly funded career guidance services. In later years, women should have equal access to retraining and reskilling services. Given that women often cite family responsibilities and cost as barriers to participation in adult education and training, more can be done to cover the direct and indirect costs of training, as well as ensuring the availability of flexible learning opportunities (OECD, 2023[5]). Countries are engaging in a range of innovative initiatives to boost ICT and related skills development for women and girls (Box 2.S.3).
Digital Pioneers in Austria
Digital Pioneers, co-funded by the Chamber of Labor Vienna and the Federation of Austrian Industries, offers women interested in STEM professions the opportunity to complete a “digital year” (Digital Pioneers, 2024[59]). The programme starts with eight weeks of basic training, where young women aged 17 to 27 acquire skills needed for a successful start in ICT and related jobs. Afterwards, these women work on projects in a partner company for at least eight months to apply what they have learnt. Graduates from the Digital Pioneers programme receive a national diploma from the respective partner company and the educational institution (e.g. Digital Campus Vorarlberg, BFI Upper Austria, BFI Tyrol) after successfully presenting their final project.
Women in Tech initiative in Luxembourg
Some countries take a whole-of-government approach to encouraging skills development for the digital age. For example, Luxembourg’s Women in Tech initiative encourages a broad awareness about computer programming. In addition to promoting STEM skills for girls via the Gender4Stem, it supports the WIDE non-profit to encourage more girls and women to learn programming through girls-only coding classes. It also raises awareness among both teachers and companies. To that end, it encourages teachers to motivate girls and boys for STEM equally. With support from Digital Luxembourg, the initiative also holds workshops for companies and employers such as “How to recruit and retain women in ICT” (Digital Luxembourg, 2023[60]).
Digital Skills for Mexican Women in the 21st Century
The Habilidades digitales para las Mexicanas del siglo XXI (Digital Skills for Mexican Women of the 21st Century) is a collaboration between the private sector (CISCO Networking Academy) and the Mexican Ministry of Labour and Social Provision. It aims to train Mexican women over 16 years of age in ICT and related skills (Gobierno de México, 2024[61]). It seeks to reduce the digital gender divide by promoting literacy and technological specialisation. The programme, now in its second phase, comprises eight courses that are free of charge, on line and self-study. These courses focus on basic skills (e.g. how to use a computer) to more specialised skills (e.g. how to program in Python and JavaScript).
Source: OECD DEO 2024 Questionnaire and national sources.
Promoting female entrepreneurship in ICT and related sectors
Targeted policies can help promote female entrepreneurship, such as facilitating access to finance for new business in the ICT and other digital-intensive sectors. Other approaches include dedicated entrepreneurship centres and mentoring programmes that offer business development support tailored to female entrepreneurs. Tax incentives, grants and other forms of support can also help women start and grow businesses in ICT and digital-intensive sectors. At the same time, paid leave and flexible work arrangements are important components of supporting female entrepreneurs. However, their implementation needs to be carefully designed. For example, entitlements should not discriminate against the self-employed (Neergaard and Thrane, 2011[62]). Evidence shows that uptake of paternity leave is positively associated with female entrepreneurship (Naldi et al., 2021[63]). Countries are engaging in a range of initiatives aimed at increasing female ICT entrepreneurship and ICT innovators (Box 2.S.4).
ENISA Emprendedoras Digitales in Spain
ENISA Emprendedoras Digitales is dedicated to funding female digital entrepreneurship projects, with the end goal of reducing the gender gap in entrepreneurship (Enisa, 2024[64]). The initiative aims to reach the European Union’s goal of facilitating the growth of scale-ups and their access to funding. It also seeks to mobilise EUR 51 million for projects managed by women entrepreneurs. Participative loans may be obtained by small and medium-sized emerging or growing companies in which one or more women hold a relevant position of leadership or power within society: in the shareholding, in the management body or as part of the management team. The loans are for a minimum of EUR 25 000 up to a maximum of EUR 1 500 000 for each beneficiary company.
Tech Undivided in Canada
As a part of Canada’s Women’s Entrepreneurship Strategy, Tech Undivided helps female founders of technology companies that concentrate on hardware and/or enterprise software technologies in southern Ontario to grow and scale their businesses (ventureLAB, 2024[65]). For six months, women engage in mentoring meetings and skills workshops aimed at learning how to raise capital effectively; commercialise new technology and intellectual property; attract talent; and identify (and win) new customers by “practising your pitch” at a dedicated “Investor Café”. Beyond technology and business support, Tech Undivided aims to reduce unconscious bias and create an inclusive tech ecosystem that increases representation and access to capital.
Women Entrepreneurship programme in Egypt
Egypt’s Women Entrepreneurship Program is designed by the Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (TIEC) to support early-stage women entrepreneurs operating in the ICT sector. This includes creating technology products or using technology to commercialise their products, such as websites, mobile applications, software programs or Internet of Things-powered platforms (Egypt, 2024[66]; MCIT, 2024[67]). The free programme seeks to train Egyptian female entrepreneurs on start-up methodologies and concepts across 27 governorates. Established in 2010, TIEC aims to drive innovation and entrepreneurship in the local ICT industry through building the capacity of enterprises and individuals, providing innovation assessment and certification services, and participating in national innovation initiatives.
Source: OECD, DEO 2024 Questionnaire and national sources.
Catalysing female ICT inventors and inventions
ICT specialists are shaping the future with new technologies, and intangible assets (e.g. patents, organisational capital and software) play a role in promoting digital innovation. Integrating more women and other underrepresented groups into ICT development will bring to bear the diverse perspectives needed to create a more inclusive digital future. In parallel, inclusive innovation policies not only contribute to social well-being but can also lead to economic growth and job creation (Planes-Satorra and Paunov, 2017[43]). Data on patents over the lifespan of their careers show that persistent work-life inequalities introduce more barriers to women than to men in the innovation ecosystem. Countries are working to increase the number of female ICT innovators and inventions (Box 2.S.5).
European Prize for Women Innovators
The European Prize for Women Innovators is a joint initiative from the European Innovation Council and the European Institute for Innovation & Technology to promote female role models in innovation (European Innovation Council, 2024[68]). In total, nine prizes ranging from EUR 20 000 to EUR 100 000 are awarded to female founders of enterprises at least two years old from the European Union and associated countries. A specific category is dedicated to women under 35. The prize elevates breakthrough innovations that benefit people and the planet.
Empowering Women’s Entrepreneurship in the United States
Empowering Women’s Entrepreneurship is a community-based initiative in the United States to increase women’s equity, job creation and economic prosperity through their ideas, insights and innovations under the auspices of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO, 2024[69]). It focuses on positive use cases from women who have achieved success, as well as resources to help women protect their intellectual property, fund their ideas and expand their professional network. It also concentrates on areas related to the ICT sector, such as AI (Larrimore, 2024[70]).
Women Scientist Scheme in India
The Department of Science and Technology in India established the Women Scientist Scheme to provide opportunities for women to re-enter the profession after a career break (Department of Science & Technology, 2024[71]). The programme is organised around three initiatives: fellowships for research in science and engineering, support for tech projects addressing societal challenges, and training in intellectual property rights with hands-on experience.
Source: National and other sources.
Gender divides exist in a range of areas – from labour markets to politics to childcare. Seen through a digital lens, gender divides are among the most marked in digital innovation. The consequences of inaction are clear – lower productivity, slower growth and increasing inequality. Action is urgently needed to close the ICT skills gap, promote female entrepreneurship, and catalyse female ICT innovators and inventions. In this way, policy makers can harness the potential of women for digital innovation.
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← 1. The 2022 PISA survey covers 81 countries and economies.
← 2. Only 17 countries and economies administered a Parent Questionnaire to the parents of the students participating in PISA 2022.
← 3. Data are unavailable for Estonia, Greece, Japan, Lithuania and Mexico.
← 4. These data come from a perception survey, and as such may partially reflect low self-confidence among the young women surveyed.
← 5. ICT specialists correspond to International Standard Classification of Occupations 2008 (ISCO08): 133, 215, 251, 252, 351, 352 and 742. The occupations are identified using factor analysis of the frequency of ICT tasks in different occupations based on data from the OECD Survey of Adult Skills, see (Grundke et al., 2017[73]). This survey is representative of the population aged between 16 and 65 in participating countries, see: www.oecd.org/skills/piaac. For Israel, data are from 2022. For the United Kingdom, data are from 2019.
← 6. The digital-related activities regroup start-ups classified in apps, AI, data and analytics, information technology, Internet services, messaging and telecommunications, platforms, software, enterprise software, fintech, robotics and semiconductors. The following threshold has been applied to select countries: more than 100 VC-funded start-ups with information of founders’ gender and at least 40% of VC-funded start-ups with information on gender. The OECD average does not include Colombia, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, New Zealand, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia.
← 7. Publications with both male and female co-authors are double counted.
← 8. Inventors’ gender was identified using a gender-name dictionary (first names by country), following the methodology described in (Lax-Martinez, Raffo and Saito, 2016[74]). IP5 patent families are patents filed in at least two offices worldwide, one of which being any of the five largest IP offices: the European Patent Office, the Japan Patent Office, the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the US Patent and Trademark Office and the National Intellectual Property Administration of the People’s Republic of China. Data for 2020 and 2021 are estimates based on available data for those years. The following threshold has been applied to select countries for the share of inventors: more than 50 inventors per year and more than 60% of inventors’ names are matched to gender. The following threshold has been applied to select countries for the share of patent families: more than 50 IP5 patent families per three-year period and more than 70% of patents with all inventors matched to gender. The OECD average of the share of inventors does not include Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Estonia, Greece, Iceland, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia. The OECD average of the share of patents does not include Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Estonia, Iceland, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia. For the share of patent families, data for Mexico, New Zealand and Portugal are for 2017-20. Data for Türkiye are for 2015-18. Data for Luxembourg are for 2014-17.
← 9. The OECD average does not include Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Estonia, Greece, Iceland, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia. For Mexico, data are from 2014 and 2020. For Portugal, data are for 2010 and 2021. For Türkiye, data are for 2011 and 2020.