ICT & Gender at Professional Level in Germany. We retrieved exemplary data from the annual survey of the German Institute for Employment Research (IAB)3, which monitors the development of unemployment and professions subjected to social insurance contributions. The IAB provides the following data for women and men employed as data processing professional, and computer scientists (classification 774; occupation: research, development, construction, design of products, concepts and programs). The data exemplarily show an underrepresentation of women in the ICT core professions in Germany. In general, an increase in the total number of 774 employees can be seen for each year, and at the same time the proportion of women is decreasing (Table 6).
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Looking at the unemployment rates for 774 professionals from 2005 to 2009 an increase can be observed in total, for men and women. At the same time, the percentage of unemployed women is decreasing (Table 7).
The above mentioned HIS survey (Briedis et al., 2008) provided additional data about the progress of employment of students in the first 12 months following graduation from university. It can be concluded from the data that graduating in mathematics, and even more in computer science and electrical engineering, is associated with clearly better chances for swift entry into the job market after university than graduating in mathematics teacher training or the humanities.
It has to be noted that according to Blossfeld et al. (2009) the number of women who work as teachers clearly exceeds the number of men who work in the same profession (in total 65.3 percent teachers are female: 8 8 percent on primary secondary and 40 percent for grammar schools). In other professions which require a university degree or a
degree from a university of applied sciences, the percentage of women is 39.6 percent.
ICT & Gender at Professional Level in Greece. In the last two decades statistics have shown that female employment has risen at faster rates than the average rate of total employment in all professional categories, and the inequality of representation in prestigious occupations between the genders has reduced. In 1961, only 3.7 percent of working women were classified under the “scientific professions” and “managerial-executive personnel” categories, whereas in 1991, 19.4 percent of working women were found in these same occupational categories. However, gender — based differentiations in payment continue to be a significant reality in specific areas, although it has been noted that in all public sector and semipublic establishments or organizations such as banks, universities etc., such an issue does not exist. Although the participation of women in the teaching personnel in primary and secondary education is high (more than 50 percent of the
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total personnel are women), women in tertiary education occupy posts in lower ranks. Data shows that women in the universities constitute about one third of the total staff. It seems that the higher the position in the academic hierarchy, the lower the percentage of women. Women are not as easily promoted as men, especially when they have family commitments, as there are not enough public facilities to help conciliate family and employment (Maratou-Alipranti, Dafna, Yan — nakopoulou, Kymperi, & Repa, 2002).
A research study conducted by the Polytechnics School in Thessalonica, namely the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, gives a concise picture about the graduates’ employment characteristics, situation and discrepancies in relation to the gender characteristics ^єєАРІЕТОТЕЛЕЮ ПАЧЕШГШМЮ ©ЕНАЛОМКИІ, 2008). According to the results of this research, women face more difficulties finding a job than men because ofunfair competition. For women in Greece, a very important factor according to the results from the data of this research for the choice of a professional career in general is the compatibility with the family, as well as a good salary and the perspective ofprogress. The maj ority ofthe female graduates in the ICT field find a job from one to six months after the completion of their studies.
According to the work done by Pouliakas and Livanos (2008), male faculty are mostly found in the more technically-oriented academic departments such as Polytechnics, Computer Science, Agricultural Studies, Physics and Mathematics, Medicine, Economics and Business and Physical Education. On the contrary, women are more heavily represented in Law, Social Sciences,
Humanities, Education, Librarianship and other medical-related sciences. According to their analysis, given that the former degrees are higher-paid disciplines than the latter, it becomes obvious that the subject of degree is a potential culprit for explaining the gender wage differential of university graduates in Greece. Greek women tend to find refuge in less risky educations that consequently offer lower compensation in terms of pay.
According to the Eurostat Labour Force Survey conducted in 2008 in Greece, the unemployment rate among women with tertiary-level education was much higher than among men (exceeding the 8 percent of the total population; Eurydice, n. d.). Some research about the employment situation for women in science and technology (see Meri, 2008) shows that the largest gender disparities in terms of the absolute number of unemployed Human Resources in Science and Technology (HRST) were found in Greece (as well as in Portugal and Slovenia) where the number of female unemployed HRST was twice the figure for men. The Labour Force Survey of the General Secretariat of National Statistical Service of Greece shows that the number of unemployed men decreased from December of 2004 to 2006, and increased in 2007 and 2008. The number of unemployed women decreased from 2004 to 2008 (see Table 8, General Secretariat of the National Statistical Service of Greece, n. d.).
According to the study conducted by Proto — voulia (Education and Development Initiative; Protovoulia, n. d.) fromApril, 2006 to June, 2008, the percentage of unemployment of the Informatics School graduates is much higher for female than male graduates (for example, 3 years post
graduation, the estimated percentage of females’ unemployment is 10.1 percent, in contrast to 2.1 percent for males’).