New research from the European Commission shows that the number of female graduates in science and engineering has increased in recent years, although the gender gap persists in these disciplines.
From 1998-2001 the number of female graduates in engineering and related subjects rose by 31 per cent, while the overall number of graduates increased by eight per cent to 340,000 in the EU.
However, the positive trend is not reflected in science and engineering employment, where men account for 69 per cent of the workforce, a share which is set to further increase, according to the new figures on "Women, science and technology: Measuring recent progress towards gender equality".
In science and engineering the number of men increased by 4.9 per cent from 1998 to 2002, whereas the increase was only 4.2 per cent for women, who are already a minority.
European Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin called on government, universities and industries to ensure that more women gain permanent employment in science and engineering.
Referring to the data, he said: "This means that efforts to increase the female workforce in science and technology have led to some initial progress.
"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.
"To foster this human resource potential, science and engineering need to become more attractive and accommodating workplaces for women," Mr Busquin added.
In 2001 alone, Europe's employment market gained some 84,000 newly-qualified women engineers, compared to 380,000 male graduates. |
