Brussels, 15/06/2004 (Agence Europe) - According to the latest figures published by Eurostat on "Women, science and technology: Measuring recent progress towards gender equality", the gap is closing between the number of men and women graduating in so-called "hard sciences", especially engineering.
From 1998 to 2001, the number of graduates in engineering and related disciplines rose by 8% to 340,000, but this increase was far greater among women (31%), according to a press release by a Commission spokesperson. In fact, although women make up just over 20% of engineering graduates, they represented 56.5% of the increase over this period in the countries of the Europe of Fifteen, and 36.5% in the EU of 25. This trend, however, has not been reflected in science and engineering jobs, where the current proportion of 69% of men is set to increase further.
Still according to Eurostat, there is a positive trend in education. From 1998 to 2001, a growing number of men and women graduated in sciences, mathematics and computer science (+25.2%), and in engineering (+8.3%). Although women represent just 20% of PhD graduates in engineering, their number is increasing rapidly. For the year 2001 alone, 84,000 newly qualified women engineers joined the employment market, compared to 380,000 men.
On job prospects for these highly-qualified women, the spokesperson notes that according to current trends, women are more likely than men to go into professions outside science, once they graduate. For jobs in science and development, the proportion of women is higher in technician roles than actual scientist posts. There is also a new growing trend for women to concentrate in poorly-funded sectors, whilst most male scientists go into fields which command higher levels of funding. (Info: http: //europa.eu.int/comm/research/science-society/women/wssi/publications_en.html).