Material for reading "Capacity to empower women to tackle gender discrimination in the labour market, especially in digital sector"

5.1 Gender discrimination in the labour market in the digital sector

Prejudice in the workplace often manifests in a variety of ways. This could occur in direct forms inhibiting women’s career advancement, for instance pay gap and occupational stereotyping. This kind of direct discrimination blocks women’s access to employment, benefits, and promotions.

On the other hand, there can be cases of indirect discrimination that are not immediately apparent or can be attributed to direct acts of discrimination. As directive 2006/54/EC of the European Parliament and of the council defines it, “indirect discrimination is when an apparently neutral provision, criterion, or practice would put persons of one sex at a particular disadvantage compared with persons of the other sex, unless that provision, criterion, or practice is objectively justified by a legitimate aim, and the means of achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary”. Therefore, even in situations that might appear non-problematic, discrimination can be present.

As an example of indirect discrimination, one can consider that attitudes, stereotypical images, and notions create preconceived ideas whereby females and males are socially and culturally assigned characteristics and roles determined and limited by their gender (EIGE, Glossary & Thesaurus). It is often the case that women are expected to have both communal and nurturing roles, whereas men have completely opposing roles as leaders and the main financial providers of the household. Therefore, men might be thought of as better suited for positions that require certain skills or capacities (e.g., leadership, possibility for flexible schedule) compared to women who are perceived to have a disadvantage in performing at the same level. This type of stereotyping presents a serious obstacle to women’s career advancement as it implicitly creates the conditions for occupational discrimination. These kinds of perceptions are more evident in the digital sector. Even in cases when women are successful in pursuing career advancement in their fields, they often do so by facing gender-based professional discrimination along the way. For example, women may still be facing discrimination due to their status as actual or potential mothers. In this context, overcoming gender-role expectations and stereotypes is often a challenge that women who are looking for career development and success are confronted with.

Therefore, beyond attracting and recruiting women to the digital labour market there is also the problem of retaining them in the sector. “Women’s participation in the digital labour market decreases with age: women under 30 with a degree in ICT make up 20 % of the ICT sector, compared to 15.4 % of women aged between 31 and 45 years and 9 % of women over 45 years”. This is often explained as the ‘leaky pipeline’ and in this case, it relates to women leaking out of ICT jobs due to a lack of career progression to senior leadership roles.

We could therefore come to the conclusion that it is important for women to recognise and detect direct and indirect discrimination at the workplace. Workplace discrimination may occur between colleagues, employee, and employer, or between an employee and a third party and can be directed at an individual employee or a group of employees. Often, some women are not even aware that one of the basic rights they have is not to be discriminated against, what constitutes discrimination and may refuse to recognise it as such.

Coaching tips for anti-discrimination support in the workplace:

  • Provide tips on how to combat discrimination online (how to report a comment / a message on different platforms).
  • Inform about country-specific mechanisms that tackle discrimination in the labour market (e.g. mention specific authorities).
  • Mentoring – engaging with other women in the labour market who have faced discrimination in the labour market and exchanging views.
  • Building digital resilience and a critical approach – recognising fake news, finding balance in the use of digital tools


Links for the self-learning

Tackling Discriminatory Labour Practices, Labour Market Segmentation and Gender Pay Gaps


5.2 Methods and tools to empower female learners

A coach’s goal should be to put a strong emphasis on supporting women on becoming individually empowered, but also considering broader social, political and cultural equity practices.

The path toward empowerment:

  • Facilitate understanding and action to address the gender inequalities influencing employment in the digital sector.
  • Promote policies aiming to empower women through fostering digital literacy. For example, re-qualification in the digital sector is a tool through which gender equality and women’s empowerment can be advanced and is integral to career advancement.
  • Role models are often known to help women break out of stereotypic roles, overcome disadvantages, and to motivate women to pursue more qualifications. Awareness of such examples can motivate women to explore and push their limits.
  • Support women to identify good practices in digital literacy programmes focusing on gender equality.
  • Netiquette code awareness.
  • Focus on identifying and managing power imbalances and recognising stereotypes: One needs to acknowledge that career paths are often determined by the educational choices made quite early in life. Stereotypes have a very detrimental effect and may also be reflected in career aspirations, along with educational choices, qualifications and skills needed for careers in the digital era. In ICT specifically, three main factors are discussed to explain women’s low participation in ICT jobs, namely women’s relative lack of interest and qualifications in the field, ICT careers favouring men and cultural factors reinforcing the association between the ICT sector and masculinity. Therefore, women are far more likely to lack specialized digital qualifications because of stereotype-driven decisions in education.  Increasing gender equality in digital jobs requires a better understanding of the reasons gender stereotypes and biases hold many women back from fulfilling their potential. Thus, women themselves must learn how to recognize those stereotypes.