The 2020 Women in Digital Scoreboard, a study carried out by the European Commission to assess women’s inclusion in digital jobs, careers and entrepreneurship, found that Malta ranks 17th among member states, slightly under the EU average.

“This confirms that like many other EU member states, Malta is also affected by a gender imbalance and impacted by the respective consequences,” says Claude Calleja, Executive at eSkills Malta Foundation.

“Pertinent to note is that Malta recorded no gender gaps in basic ICT use and skills for everyday personal and work-related activity. Gender balance in ICT usage by the Maltese population compares well with other EU counterparts, and, over the past years, statistics are showing young females outperform their male counterparts on many indices.”

However, the same scoreboard shows that Malta significantly lags behind its European counterparts in specialist skills and employment metrics, where only 7.6 of every 1,000 females aged between 20 and 29 years were STEM graduates, against 19.1 for males (the EU average is 13.1 females, 24.9 males).

“Malta also has one of the highest gender pay gaps,” says Mr Calleja. “One must highlight that gender imbalance extends beyond the ICT sector. In Malta, only one in every five senior positions (C-level executives and non-executives) in the largest listed companies are female. This is marginally better than the EU average.”

In 2019, during the launch of the National eSkills Strategy, Minister Silvio Schembri said that if more women took up digital jobs, the European economy would increase by €16 billion. Reflecting on this statement, Mr Calleja explains that increased awareness of this gender gap in the European digital sector has led to notable initiatives, at both local and national levels.

“The European Commission has launched the Women in Digital initiative that foresees greater involvement of women in the tech sector as a means for boosting the economy and allowing a full participation in society. That is how it is forecasted that with more women entering the digital jobs market, it could create an annual €16 billion GDP boost for the European economy.”

Sharing reasons why many women might feel hindered from entering this sector, Mr Calleja asserts “a considerable number of women believe that there still exists a glass ceiling above which almost no women can access, and to reach this glass ceiling they have to work twice as hard as the average man,” he explains.

“Many women still believe that they will not be promoted to other levels when they work on a flexitime schedule. This demotivates women as it is not clear what their organisations are doing to support their advancement, especially to leadership positions.”

He goes on to highlight some initiatives that are thought to attract women to take on leadership roles – among them, abolishing a gender pay gap between men and women. “Organisations must structure career positions, promotions and salaries in the same way across the board and base these on equal performance education, skills and experience within the company.”

Diversity in leadership positions, including at board level is important, while leadership and recruitment training should be reviewed to ensure it does not project any unconscious bias.

“We should actively seek and promote Women Leadership Ambassadors. This will encourage, entice and nudge women to take on the challenge when it comes to leadership positions. Also, encourage promising women already working in the company to ask for a promotion or to take part in the recruitment of management. Sometimes even very talented women lack confidence,” says Mr Calleja.

“Lastly, in the management recruitment process, if both candidates are equal, give preference to the less represented gender. Not everyone would agree with this, but this could help in achieving gender targets.”

The absence of women in the ICT sector is hardly limited to this sector alone. Indeed, the challenges for women to enter the world of work and reach leadership positions are also rooted in complex societal issues, primarily because, traditionally, they take on the majority of home and care responsibilities, while men are the breadwinners of the family.

“In a situation where the wife is sharing the financial burden for the family with the husband, it should go without saying that in turn, the husband should then also share the job of home and care responsibilities,” says Mr Calleja. “Together, the couple must negotiate a shared work-life balance. This balance, coupled with flexible work conditions offered by the employer, should enable more women to join the workforce and stay with little to no hindrance, ultimately breaking with past traditions.”

However, Mr Calleja continues that across 35 European countries, fewer than 1 in 5 computer science graduates are women. “The OECD‘s Programme for International Student Assessment shows that men are far more likely than women to pursue a career as ICT professionals. This clearly shows that societies have much more work to do here in the road ahead.”

Shifting the focus to the work of the eSKills Malta Foundation in this area, Mr Calleja states that it is incessant in its mission to promote ICT careers, especially among women. The Foundation collaborates on a yearly basis with private enterprise on initiatives such as ‘Women in ICT’ and has set up a focus group, specifically for women, dealing with the issues of promotion, inclusion, and diversity.

“The Foundation always believed that actual role models are pivotal to promote and inspire women to take up careers in ICT and heavily encourages Women in ICT Ambassadors. The Foundation also commissioned various studies, such as ‘Analysis of the Gender Gap in the Digital Sector’ and ‘Guidelines to Increase and Retain Women in ICT’ to assist employers to better adapt the work environment. This, in the near future, can lead to women making up possibly at least half of the ICT workforce.”

Mr Calleja continues that the Foundation has also commissioned studies among school age children to investigate the interest of young girls in STEM subjects. Findings showed that young girls are equally interested in ICT as much as boys. “However, something happens along the way that interrupts this interest, which is finally lost. To counteract this, the Foundation is always pleased and supports wholeheartedly private initiatives such as ‘Girls in ICT’ and ‘Digigirlz’, to maintain the momentum of girls‘ curiosity in their early teenage life.”