Little change in women and science statistics
The latest Eurostat data show that the growth rate for women working in the science and engineering sectors has overtaken that of men in the EU-15, but that in the EU-25, growth remains higher for men. Men continue to outnumber women working in science and engineering in every EU country. Across the whole of Europe, more women than men are graduating from higher education institutes. However, women remain significantly underrepresented in the scientific and engineering (S&E) disciplines. Portugal and Latvia come the closest to parity, with 42 per cent and 41 per cent respectively of S&E graduates being women. However, in Belgium, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Hungary, women account for less than a quarter of total S&E graduates. The situation is changing, albeit very slowly. Between 1998 and 2001, the total number of science, maths and computing graduates increased by 17.1 per cent in the EU-15, and 38.8 per cent of this increase was due to women. The number of engineering graduates rose by 5.8 per cent, and more than half (56.5) was due to women. 'This means that efforts to increase the female workforce in science and technology have led to some initial progress,' said EU Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin. 'But now, governments, universities and especially industry must take steps to ensure that this will actually translate into increased employment of women researchers, especially in the natural sciences and engineering.' The Commissioner is justified in being concerned about the growth in graduates translating into a growth in those working in research. When S&E graduates begin employment, more women work as technicians than as researchers. Women researchers are also still a minority in the government and higher education sectors, particularly in the natural science and engineering fields. And while women are underrepresented in the public sector, this is even more the case in business. In many countries, the representation of women researchers in business is around half of that in the government and education sectors. In Austria, where the lowest proportion of employed researchers in the private sector are women, less than one post in ten is held by a woman.