With statistics showing women are bearing the brunt of home-schooling responsibilities while working from home, BCS wants to see fast action on gender parity.
BCS President Rebecca George OBE has called for action to improve gender parity in the tech industry following the latest statistics on how women in tech have been affected by the pandemic. The most recent data shows that women in the field have borne a disproportionate amount of pressure during the pandemic, and employers are still not doing enough to seek gender parity.
With the rapid rise in home working and the closure of schools, women in the industry have reported a disproportionate increase in workload. They are often the primary carer for children and many have been furloughed, made redundant, or opted to reduced responsibilities at work during the pandemic as home pressures have piled on.
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Limited progress was made on the under-representation of women in the UK tech scene this year, with the latest BCS figures showing women now account for 20% of the industry -- up from 17% in 2019. Recent research from UCL has shown that women are spending twice as much time as men home-schooling children during lockdown.
The pandemic certainly hasn't helped improve gender parity in tech, and presentation of ethnic minorities in the UK tech scene is particularly shocking right now. Black women reportedly make up just 0.7% of IT sector employees, a representation rate 2.5 times worse than in other industries.
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In an article on the BCS website, President Rebecca George OBE has highlighted recent progress but called for action on improving representation across the tech sector. "The digital transformation we have seen this year as a consequence of COVID-19 has delivered great progress in some areas of communication and interaction," she wrote. "However, opportunities to come together in groups to discuss the work we have underway and collaborate face-to-face isn’t happening."
Source: BCS
