Education

Women, STEM careers is what you should opt for

The Latin American Post Staff January 23, 2020

240 2 minutes read

Recent research from LinkedIn, Infoempleo, and the International University of la Rioja, confirms that there is a huge demand of experts in digital careers.

Woman engineer checking parts of a vehicle.

Woman engineer checking parts of a vehicle. / Photo: Pexels

The Woman Post | Luisa Fernanda Báez Toro

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Leer en español: Las mujeres deben acercarse a las carreras STEM

A few months ago, the study IT and Women Employment: 10 professions with a future by Infoempleo and the International University of la Rioja, which affirms that it is necessary to encourage more women to bet on studying STEM careers, was published.

As read on Educaweb, by 2021 45% of jobs will be related to the digital field and there will be a shortage of almost 900,000 professionals specialized in ICT areas across Europe, according to the European Commission.

"This problem of talent shortage cannot be solved without counting on women, which today represent more than half of the university population", said Teresa Tomás Rodríguez, CEO of Infoempleo.

However, despite the rise of the digital economy, female representation in the sector has barely increased in the last 20 years and experts are wondering why, each year, there are fewer and fewer women interested in the technological field. According to Femagazine, the president of the Spanish Association of Artificial Intelligence, Amparo Alonso, has said that “stereotyped education” is one of the main problems.

“Girls are put more than princesses and boys of champions, when girls are small they feel more incapable in these matters, they lack references”, she said. For Alonso, introducing Computing and Computer Science from an early age is fundamental.

“Although the technology sector offers better job opportunities and salaries, only 20% of young women choose to study a STEM career. This underrepresentation of women in the field of ICT has a very high cost for the economy”, said Teresa Tomás Rodríguez.

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She added that in order to change that, stereotypes that point to professions in technology as exclusively male territory need to disappear. In her study, for example, Tomás Rodríguez gave a voice to women who already have an important professional career in the IT world and concluded that the followings are some of the careers that women should opt for:

1. Artificial intelligence: according to the report, the European Commission estimates that there are currently at least 350,000 vacancies in this area throughout Europe. Salaries vary depending on experience, but they can range from 30,000 to 77,550 euros per year.

2. Educational Robotics: this expert is responsible for designing educational projects and tools based on robotic devices, apply it in the classroom or teach others to use this knowledge. According to Femagazine, the salary range is between 24,000 and 30,000 euros per year.

3. Cybersecurity specialist: the one that develops strategies in order to prevent any cyber attack. The average salary is between 30,000 and 60,000 euros per year.

The findings of this study are similar to the ones presented by LinkedIn, in which, according to BBC, users profiles were observed and measured to determine the frequency with which people were hired according to their abilities.