Italy, innovation is not a woman: engineering and high technology is a man's business

Brussels – Science is not female, and technology is hardly a woman, at least in Italy, where participation in productive sectors is increasingly male-driven. Eurostat certifies a country system where gender equality still remains a distant goal, at least as far as key sectors for innovation and competitiveness are concerned. In 2023, there were more than 807,000 men and 417,000 women in all job positions that require engineers and personnel with scientific skills. Women are practically half the number of men, with the disparity even more pronounced in high-tech sectors, where men are almost four times as many as women (201 thousand versus 55 thousand). What’s more, the Italian gap is increasing. Compared to 2022, women’s participation in innovation-functional work is shrinking. The overall number of staff and employees increases but to the advantage of male colleagues—a counter-trend result because, as the European Statistical Institute notes, in 2023, within the European Union, there were overall 7.7 million women scientists and engineers, 381,200 more than in 2022.

The Italian figure is such that it does not go unnoticed, and Eurostat cites it in the note accompanying the data. In terms of male-female presence, “the lowest representation of female scientists and engineers was in Hungary (30.7 per cent of the total), followed by Finland (31.4 per cent), Italy (34.1 per cent), Slovakia and Malta (each with 34.3 per cent). In short, Italy is third to last in Europe for female scientists and engineers.

English version by the Translation Service of Withub