Science and Technology and Gender Equality Knowledge and Policy at the International Level

1. Science and Technology and Gender EqualityKnowledge and Policy at the International Level Sophia Huyer, Senior Research Advisor Gender Advisory Board UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development August 24, 2004

2. Outline • Is there a problem? • Educating girls and women in S&T • Gender patterns in S&T employment: • Qualification, recruitment, retention and advancement • S&T for gender equality and social development • Agriculture, energy, water, biotechnology, ICT

3. Is there a problem? Girls and women in S&T • Women are underrepresented at every level of science and technology. • They are ‘under-educated, have fewer credentials, are under-employed and clearly under-promoted’ around the world • We do not have exact numbers for all countries, because statistics are not regularly collected • S&T for development as implemented has benefitted women less than men - their poverty has increased disproportionately

4. So what? • Studies have found that: • Societies that discriminate by gender pay a high price in their ability to develop and to reduce poverty • When technologies improve women’s production and increase income, children’s well-being improves, school enrolment rises, birth rates decrease and environmental conservation increases.

5. Also… • Increasing girls’ access to science education contributes to the science literacy of a population • Increasing women’s participation in S&T increases national capacity for scientific development • Increasing diversity in the S&T workforce has been shown to increase production and creativity. • Women have a right to participate in and benefit from the design, creation and management of their built and natural environments.

6. Education: the situation • Illiteracy: Women comprise 543 of the 854 million illiterates in the world – 63% • Girls constitute 2/3 of children without access to basic education • A girl living in a rural area is three times more likely to drop out of school than a boy in the city. • Numbers of girls and women in S&T subjects and disciplines decreases as one moves up educational system

7. Gendered barriers to education • Socio-cultural attitudes: - investment in boys’ education; expectation girls will marry • Lower levels of literacy and education • Lower expectations for girls’ achievements • Lack of appropriate facilities • Armed conflict • Domestic responsibilities - for both girls and women • Sexual harassment in schools

8. Gendered barriers for boys • Boys tend to disregard authority, academic work and formal achievement - “boys will be boys” • Girls put greater emphasis on collaboration, talk and sharing • Peer pressure • Armed conflict and violence • Few male teachers at primary levels

9. Strategies: getting girls in school • elimination of school fees • active financial support to put girls in school • flexible scheduling of classes to accommodate girl’s domestic duties. • demonstrating to parents value of access to information and knowledge • Increasing a household’s wealth index by one unit enhances a boy’s chances of attending school by 16%, 41% for girls. (UNESCO, 2003).

10. Strategies: science teaching • extracurricular trips and activities • science clubs and summer science camps; • support and assistance of teachers, parents, school and community members • use of human resources in communities, including scientists • teacher training and updating in STEM • Locally-appropriate and sustainable science is taught • female role models • interactive teaching methods

11. Education: conclusions • poverty a major factor in countries with high level of gender disparity in school enrolments • when they have opportunities for education, women take advantage of them and perform well • low performance of boys in some countries indicates the negative effects of masculine gender roles • as education systems move towards gender parity and improved quality, girls tend to perform better than boys • learning approaches which emphasis informal learning, extracurricular activity, holistic approaches to subjects relevant to students’ lives, interactive and hands-on curricula will improve the educational experience for both girls and boys

12. Gender Patterns in S&T Employment • Despite substantial increases in women’s enrolment in STEM subjects, horizontal gender segregation continues, with women predominantly represented in health and biosciences, and poorly represented in engineering and physics • In many countries there is a low translation of women’s scientific training to recruitment and over qualification of women scientists in the science workforce

13. Gender Patterns in S&T Employment (cont) • As one moves up the ladder, women’s rate of temporary and shorter-term work is greater than that of men’s, and women are paid significantly less than men • Many highly trained women are lost: there are three times as many women as men science graduates in non-professional employment in science in Britain • Three stages of attrition: • Recruitment, Retention, Advancemet

14. MIT, 1985-1994

15. Recruitment • Horizontal and vertical segregation • segregation by discipline or sector, i.e. in biological and health sciences • segregation by level of pay, resources and prestige • women tend to choose positions and institutions which stress teaching over research • higher preference on student quality, teaching load, collegiality and interaction within departments, opportunities for joint work, and female representation on faculty --> preferences which are not well-rewarded in performance review systems • men tend to consider salary and benefits priorities

16. Retention • Women tend to leave the workforce earlier to have children and experience difficulty re-entering • Those who do stay tend to not have children or defer having children • Women scientists have a lower rate of marriage than men • They have shorter-term work contracts and positions • women’s rate of exit from science is higher than that from other professions and twice that of men

17. Advancement • Men dominate in senior research and management, women tend to be employed in technical positions and shorter-term research and teaching • Glass ceiling: • work-life balance and preconceptions about appropriate behaviour • gendered patterns and approaches to productivity; • performance measurement and promotion criteria.

18. NSF Study: • Women tend to be younger than their male colleagues • women are less likely to be in senior ranks, and female faculty find it more difficult to achieve tenure and promotion to senior ranks. • Women receive less credit for experience than men do – due either to family responsibilities and workforce interruptions, or gender bias. • Women are particularly disadvantaged early in careers during child-rearing years, with reduced chances of promotion and tenure • As a result, women tend to earn less than their male counterparts, and participate less in senior societies, committees, and prestigious activities.

19. Other issues: • Access to networks and mentors • “Belonging” • Different career and productivity patterns • Different ambitions? • “Good old-fashioned sexism” - downgrading of women’s experience and abilities, behaviour expectations

20. Strategic focus areas: • collect data, tracking horizontal and vertical segregation • redefinition of “academic age” and employment experience to include all years engaged in relevant work and research experience • allowance of job-sharing, flex-time and helping spouses to find employment • policies which address work-life balance, sexual harassment, career development, and re-training and re-entry after employment breaks • support for international experience for women (especially in developing countries), for conferences, field work, advanced training, and education

21. Strategies (cont) • active strategies to recruit and promote women • strengthening and support of internal mentoring networks for women • identification of high-potential women for promotion or training • recognition of the suitability of broader ranges of experience • access to and support of networks of women scientists and technologists

22. S&T for Gender Equality and Social Development • After decades of S&T interventions in development, women’soverall positionhas declined relative to men, and women have become disproportionately poor in relation to the men in their communities. • Women’s S&T activities in their daily work is overlooked • They engage in 60-100% of agricultural production activities in the developing world • Energy for cooking; gathering of firewood and water • Indigenous knowledge • Family health care • Women make up 2/3 of nonformal sector producers and traders

23. S&T for gender equality and social development • Environmental management • Agriculture and food security • Energy • Water and sanitation • New technologies • Biotechnology • ICT

24. Environmental management • Women and men have differing responsibilities in relation to productive and reproductive activities and ownership and access to resources • They have different kinds of knowledge in environmental management and use • Women play a strategic role in the incubation and transfer of critical knowledge for survival and wellbeing • Women provide food, shelter, health and income

25. 1. Agriculture and food security • Women engage in between 60-90% of food production in developing countries, primarily as small and subsistence farmers, and yet most of the agricultural technology, resources, credit and information support which is developed is aimed at larger (male-owned) farm businesses

26. Core issues : • Access to land and resources. Most women do not own or have direct access rights to land for farming • Knowledge of good land and crop cultivation and management. • Access to and control over resources • Types: • Urban agriculture, street foods, livestock management

27. Strategic focus areas: • Increased land productivity • Increased access to land rights • Independent income • Reduced drudgery, for example of hand pounding • Time savings and flexibility in time use • Additional income

28. 2. Water and sanitation • Women determine the domestic use of water, but are rarely involved in decision-making on sanitation and hygiene issues, such as availability and placement of toilets, water pumps, and use of water. • Time and energy expended • Educational opportunities restricted • Degradation of ecosystems, polluted water, and contamination of groundwater and aquifers • Privatisation of water supply

29. 3. Energy • Cookstoves and domestic use major source of energy use globally • Biomass - low quality, health repercussions, time to use and gather • Poor people use less energy: to boil water, lighting at night (effects on educational performance and life opportunities) • Night lighting also allows extended working hours, street lighting can improve safety and allow activities such as adult education • Urban vs rural access

30. 3. Energy (cont) • Gender issues: • Privatisation: access, cost, subsidies • type of energy, and for which item (luxury vs household) • Reliance on batteries • Women are also energy entrepreneurs and providers • economic, environmental and social impacts of energy choices

31. Strategic focus areas • Women as entrepreneurs, both sellers of energy services and sellers of products that depend on energy services for their manufacture • Interventions which reduce drudgery of daily household activities, such as use of a milling machine to replace human energy in grain preparation. • Generation and distribution of clean, non-polluting energy sources for the poor and in rural areas.

32. Strategic focus areas • Improved stoves need to be developed which use available biomass and do not cause respiratory problems. • Dependency on carbon sources needs to be reduced and replaced with a focus on small, flexible energy sources which also offer entrepreneurship potential.

33. New Technologies • 1. Biotechnology • Controversial, but said to have the potential to raise productivity across a range of industries including healthcare, agriculture, food, fine chemicals, pulp and paper, waste treatment and waste disposal, • Gender issues include different priorities and resource needs. • Differences in living and working conditions and differing entitlement to resources exposes men and women to different health risks.

34. 1. Biotechnology • Health: could provide greater access to existing interventions, development of new treatments for major diseases and conditions, improved vaccinations and microbicides • Agriculture: ability of women to benefit is unclear, given gendered access to resources, training and other inputs.

35. Strategic focus areas • Research to assess whether crops or biopesticides produced through biotechnology raise issues differing from those posed by conventional processes in terms of adoption of and benefits experienced by women. • Detailed analysis required to identify those categories of disease where gender is relevant in the context of the application of biotechnology. • Existing roles and possible expansion of gender roles in the codification of the knowledge should be studied.

36. Strategic focus areas • Assessment of training needs to promote the effective participation of women in biotechnology policymaking at national and international levels.

37. Information and communications technologies (ICTs) • In general, women make up a small percentage of internet and computer users. This is changing in some countries - generally those which have greater levels of development and gender equality. • This is potentially an important knowledge resource for women.

38. What is the benefit of ICTs? • ICTs support income generation, education, health, access to information and awareness on (public and private) rights, and improve their wellbeing • DAW Expert Group Meeting, November 2002: • “when there is an enabling environment, ICT can provide diverse avenues for women’s social, political and economic empowerment.”

39. From access to knowledge • But access is insufficient: what kind of information is being accessed? Who produced it? Who can use it? What is it used for? • Women as passive recipients vs active knowledge/technology developers • Knowledge is produced by processing information: assimilated, reflected upon, adapted to experiences, needs, contexts and worldviews

40. How to get from access to knowledge: • Equality in ICT access, knowledge and use – across all races, sexes and classes – involves: • technology fluency; • mastery of analytical skills, • computer, technology, information and communication concepts; • ability to imagine innovative uses for technologies across a range of problems and subjects; and a • ability to develop, find and use information and knowledge to improve one’s life and expand one’s choices.

41. Strategic focus areas • Five main areas of approach: • Creating an enabling environment • Developing content which speaks to women’s concerns and reflects their local knowledge, • Education of girls and women with ICT and in S&T • Promoting increased employment in the IT sector • Implementing e-governance strategies which are accessible to women; and promoting women’s lobbying and advocacy activities.

42. Gender Advisory Board UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development http://GAB.wigsat.org shuyer@wigsat.org