Less than 50% of Women Studying STEM-related Courses Consider it a Career, report says

TechCabal has released the Nigerian Women in Tech Report which examines the distribution and level of involvement of women in Nigeria’s technology and STEM fields.

Just spent the last 2 hours doing the same. The report was so well documented and twas good to see substantial evidence to the issues at hand for #womeninSTEM, and the recommendations from real people.

Welldone @TechCabal https://t.co/bvmf2OM9Tr

— Big Wams | Wamide A. (pronounced wa-me-day) (@wamide_a) April 4, 2020

The report, which is available for free download, looks at the gaps that exist in women participation, show challenges and highlight recommendations for improvement. It also puts the spotlight on 21 women entrepreneurs, c-suite executives and 7 women developers working in the Nigerian technology industry.

“Notwithstanding decades of progress towards workplace equality, women remain underrepresented in Nigeria’s technology workforce. We’ve embarked on this report to showcase the arena where women in technology play across Nigeria, and the contribution to the big picture when we look at it through the lens of STEM,” said Tomiwa Aladekomo, CEO at Big Cabal Media.

Key findings in the report:

• More than 65% of the female STEM university students surveyed applied for those courses as a result of their passion and interests as against being pressured by their parents to do so or because it was the only available option.
• 59% of the survey respondents admit to facing challenges in their course of study, however, over 75% of the same respondents say that the challenges are not gender-related. Despite the challenges faced, 54% of them feel happy about studying the course.
• Less than 50% of the female students surveyed see themselves having a STEM-related career in the next 5 – 10 years.
• The majority of the founders surveyed – 55.6% said that the challenges they faced were gender-based while many of the developers surveyed didn’t feel this way. 83% of the latter felt that their challenges weren’t gender-based.
• The number and percentage of female developers in the tech companies we surveyed are increasing with each passing year, which shows that there is a growing interest in women’s participation in the tech field.

Edited by Luis Monzon

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