A ClosinGap report asks to add more women to avoid a deficit of 1.1 million digital professional profiles in 2053

MADRID, 25 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Promoting women's access to digital professions would contribute more than 71,700 million euros of wealth to Spain in thirty years, a figure that is equivalent to 6.4% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 2021, according to the fourteenth report of the cluster ClosinGap, which is committed to closing the gender gap to avoid a significant deficit of digital talent.

The study 'The opportunity cost of the gender gap in digital professions', prepared by Telefónica in collaboration with International Financial Analysts (AFI) and presented this Tuesday at Fundación Telefónica, forecasts that digital jobs in Spain will increase by rate of 2.9% per year, so the demand will reach 2.9 million jobs in the next thirty years.

Meanwhile, the number of people employed in digital professions will grow at an annual rate of 1.3%, that is, a total of 1.8 million people in the next three decades.

Therefore, the difference between both figures in 2053 will mean a digital talent deficit of 1.1 million professional profiles.

The ClosinGap platform, made up of twelve companies and foundations and dedicated to analyzing the economic impact of women not having the same opportunities as men, underlines the need to close the gender gap that exists in the digital sector.

Digital professions include those linked to engineering, computer science or mathematics, but also others related to data science, web and multimedia development, e-commerce management, cybersecurity, digital marketing or social media and content management. the digital experience of companies.

The report states that, currently, for every man employed in digital professions there are 0.34 women, and that, if these levels are maintained, Spain will experience a competitive disadvantage compared to neighboring countries.

This was pointed out by the president of ClosinGap, Marieta Jiménez, during the presentation of the study: "It will be decisive in our future as a country, since it is positioned as one of the most relevant factors to measure our competitiveness in the coming years".

The event was also attended by the Director of Corporate Affairs and Sustainability of Telefónica, Eduardo Navarro; the global director of Sustainability of Telefónica, Elena Valderrábano; the director of People of Telefónica Spain, Raquel Fernández; and the AFI Applied Economics consultant Verónica López.

To achieve a balance between supply and demand in the digital labor market in 2053, thus generating a wealth of 71.7 billion euros for the Spanish economy as a whole that year, the proportion of women in digital professions should grow by 5.1 % every year.

The analysis determines that gender inequalities in digital professions are due to social conventions or practices, such as insufficient co-responsibility in care and household chores; gender stereotypes that condition perceptions, expectations and decision-making in the educational and professional stage; and the imbalance in the presence of leading women in areas of public relevance.

These conventions begin to materialize in gender inequalities in the educational stage - more specifically, when choosing between training itineraries - and are consolidated with the incorporation into the labor market, where there are difficulties in finding female profiles in the field of digital professions, according to the study.

The Director of Corporate Affairs and Sustainability at Telefónica has stated that "although the demand for professionals is growing in Spain, it is not being covered by women, and this is holding back social and economic progress".

"Between all of us, we have to be able to make the proportion of women in digital professions grow by more than 5% each year. To achieve this, companies must attract female digital talent, promote it and provide role models for girls and young people," she said.

In the analysis of the first educational stages (Primary and Secondary Education), ClosinGap observes that the learning and use of digital tools is present in a transversal way and is not subject to choice.

But, when studying the presence now of women in Vocational Training, it is seen that it is a minority in digital degrees, where they represent 22.1% of the student body, compared to 45% in non-digital degrees.

This trend continues in university education, where, in aggregate, women account for 63% of enrollments and show better academic performance, with a completion rate of 17.2% for them, compared to 14.4% from them.

However, their presence is a minority in digitally intense university courses (35%), despite the fact that they also have better academic performance than them, with 27.4% for girls, compared to 18.1% for boys. .

This, associated with the fact that digital university degrees have greater employability than the rest of the disciplines (78.9% compared to 71.2%), causes this inequality to lead to a lower presence of women in the labor market a general level.

Some of the essential factors to mitigate stereotypes that prevail in society are notoriety and public visibility, according to the authors of the report.

In the field of academic research, women represent 42.6% of the total Spanish teaching-research staff (0.74 women for every man), but in digital-type branches of knowledge they barely account for 23.9% of the total. faculty.

In addition, the gender gap widens in positions of greater responsibility: there are 0.21 female professors for every professor in these disciplines.

Regarding the new content creation work environment that emerged with social networks, women concentrate a greater volume of sponsorships (83%) and, despite this, their remuneration is lower (77 cents per publication, compared to the euro received by men). men in 2021).

Likewise, the study analyzes the possible differences between men and women in the adoption of teleworking in their work activity and reveals that, although a greater proportion of women declare that they have a job that would allow them to telework, not all of them put it into practice.

The most frequent reason is related to the technical means offered by their companies.

Finally, the report shows that the digital skills of the Spanish population improved significantly between 2019 and 2021, but that the gender gap that existed before the coronavirus pandemic remained in 2021.

The gap even widens in some of the digital communication activities and, above all, computer skills, such as programming.

On a positive note, the skills gap is reduced or disappears in the use of Advanced Excel or music, video or photo editing.

In order to close the gap between men and women, ClosinGap proposes to work on education for equality and encourage the exercise of co-responsibility from school.

At the labor level, it is necessary to implement a diversity and inclusion agenda in organizations that guarantees that the incorporation of women in digitally sophisticated or advanced positions is encouraged.