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Each period of technological change carries with it high expectations of societal and organizational restructuring that favours the disadvantaged. This holds true for information and communication technologies too. Embedded in the post-Fordist mode of production organization, it is presumed that IT will create new windows of opportunities and accelerate social mobility for new entrants like women, in an institutional framework that is not as, yet, shaped by traditional power relations. Reforms in the social and economic sector have so propitiated that‚ IT is one of the best-equal opportunity areas ‘that provide wider opportunities for women to enter and succeed in this industry’. Nevertheless, the validity of these claims is yet to be established through empirical analysis. For such a transition in attitudes towards gender to take place, certain prerequisites have to be met. First, there should be an adequate proportion of technically trained female labour force. Second, for the permeation of an alternate gender culture, there needs to be a process of de-learning and re-learning from the new work environment for both men and women (Haraway, 1997; Cockburn and Ormond, 1993). In essence, the family life of a woman and her professional commitments adapt to one another. Even as early as the 1980’s, research that centred on the effect of new technologies on women’s jobs spawned a whole body of literature developing which explores the relationship between women and technology. Of all the approaches, the following two are widely followed and revered (Henwood, 1993).
Henwood (1993) also advocates a wariness of the ‘add women and stir’ approach and argues for frameworks, which address the many ways in which technology and gender interact. Henwood suggests that access to skills is not enough to secure a permanent place for women in the technological workplace and that the source of the inequality needs to be addressed (1993). Battel (1994), on the other hand, does not deny the relevance of this argument but adopts a more pragmatic view point; the difficulties surrounding women and technology involve wider social questions than computer courses alone can hope to solve. Therefore, the means, the know-how to ‘break through the barriers which make the computer as a machine meaningless’ to women, must be made available to them. Grundy (1994) acknowledges that despite the superficiality of the add-more-women approach, it must nevertheless, be implemented, as it is a precondition to the ‘emasculation’ of computing. Women and technology looks into the gender segregation of skills and jobs and the gender sensitivity of the organization in particular. It aims to alter the masculine practices of these occupations so that women could enter into such work without any loss of identity or integrity (Grundy, 1994). Women should not be required to ‘play the game’ or accept working conditions such as ten hour days, frequent weekend work or travel, in order to fit into the computer culture (Dain 1991). Wajcman (1990) advocates that what is needed is a transformation in the nature of paid and unpaid work, as well as looking at the impact women can have on technology and technology on women. Drawing from this approach, the following parameters have been used to analyse the gender regime in the IT sector of the sample nations- proportion of women across various IT occupations/sectors, working conditions, practical gender needs of women, learning and career paths. The actual situation can be evaluated from the published literature available on this theme from some American, Asian-Pacific and European countries. Global participation of women in IT: ‘Add women and stir’ North and Latin American countries United States A chronological analysis of gender dimension in IT industries in the USA can be broadly grouped into three different phases: viz first (1970-1989); second (1990-1998) and third periods (1999-2002). This classification of the time period is derived on the basis of the rate of publications on women issues in computing in the last three decades. During the initial period less than 20% of women participated in the IT labour force and out of these, a high majority of them were clustered in the lower hierarchy of the IT occupations. According to a Computerworld survey (1974), women represented 99% of key-punchers and between 13 to 20% of business system analysts and programmers. A decade later, this position had changed marginally. The representation of women across different specialities during the 80’s was in the order of 92% data-entry operators and 59% computer operators, which clearly indicated that the trend towards women’s status in the IT-based jobs had not improved but remained identical to that of the situation in 1970’s (Strober and Arnold, 1987). The Task Force on Recruiting Underrepresented Groups (1998) reported that women constituted only 25% of the IT work force during the second period (1990-1998) and that women remained under represented in most IT occupations. In spite of the encouragement from the government and the various computer-based organizations, women made up only 30% of computer scientists, 32% of system analysts, 35% of computer programmers, 10% of IS directors, 18% of project leaders and 14% of application development managers (Frenkal, 1990). Though, it was a significant improvement over earlier periods, still women’s position in the higher echelons of the professions appeared limited (Donato, 1990; Wright & Jacob, 1995; Computerworld Salary survey, 1995). This situation correlates closely with the gender situation in computing education in the US during the last three decades. It is reported that the number of men earning degrees in computer and information sciences far outstripped those earned by women throughout the 1970’s, 1980’s and early 1990’s. Men gained 86.5% of American BA degrees in computing in the period 1971-72, giving them a near monopolistic hold over the field of work. By 1981-82, women were contesting this strong hold by increasing their share of computer science BA’s to 35%. However, expectations that this 20% growth signalled that the tide was irrevocably turning against male domination was floundered soon. By 1991-92, the proportion of women earning degrees in this field had once again fallen to 28.7%; and this figure was still falling into 1992-93 (US Department of Education, 1994; Woodfield, R, 2000). Despite many initiatives by organizations women have not yet achieved parity, especially in senior level positions (Candee, 1997). It is observed that the following have contributed for women’s lower representation in the IT industry, namely, (i) masculine and technical connotations attached with computing, (ii) gender socialization with technology; (iii) male dominated structure and culture of employment within the industry; (iv) employer’s hiring strategies; (v) women’s reluctance to participate in IT education, and many others. However, one could notice a trend towards closing down of gender segregation in IT occupations in the second phase (Table 1). It is interesting to note that women’s representation in positions of power and responsibility are also increasing though slowly, their presence in the lower-level positions are shrinking over the years. Wright and Jacob (1995) also have pointed out that the degree of sex segregation across computer specialities, as measured by the index of dissimilarity declined over the periods. This is calculated for four specialities (such as computer programmers, operation system researchers and analysts, computer systems analysts and other specialities and electrical and electronic engineers) by using the data obtained from U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics. The gheottisation thesis is not found to be relevant in the case of women’s position in the IT labour market in the US and there seems to be closing down of gender gap in the occupational hierarchy. 
As for the end of the period between 1999-2002, 1999 saw women represented 28 percent of the total IT work force (Steinbach, 2002) and then subsequently, in 2001, 20% of computer programmers and computer specialists (US Dept. of Labour, Women’s Bureau, 2002), 27.4% of computer systems analysts and scientists and 10.4% of engineers were women. Clearly women have not yet been equally recruited nor have they found gender equity among the top IT occupations. In order to improve the IT labour market potential of the country, the US government has made various recommendations, including encouraging the participation of under represented groups (Engineering Workforce Committee, IEEE-USA, 2000). It is estimated that computer and data processing services will be the fastest growing industry in the US economy, with employment expected to increase 86 percent between 2000 and 2010. Computer specialists account for almost half of all employees in this industry. Therefore, several national projects have been developed by the Women’s Bureau to address the high technology initiative for women. As far as the roadblocks to women’s entry into the IT related fields are concerned, women’s preference for non-scientific and non-technical subjects is cited as one of the major reasons. It is said that many of the women who have made their in-roads into high-tech industries studied computers, mathematics, engineering, or other science and technology disciplines as undergraduate students. For example, in 1996, men were three times more likely to choose computer science as a field of study than women. This parallels women’s participation in other technology-related disciplines. Overall, women earn about 1 of every 6 bachelor level degrees awarded in engineering- the gateway to many technical careers in the United States economy. The information technology work force convocation has highlighted some of the barriers, that blocked women, which include (i) less encouragement to enter technical education and careers due to a lack of role models in the technical professions in school, at home, in post-secondary education, in the work force, and among high-tech business owners and executives; (ii) image of the IT profession; (iii) learning styles; (iv) lack of networks among peer groups; (v) glass ceiling; (vi) employers bias in hiring policies, etc. (Carens, 1998). A study conducted by the Carnegie Mellon University in the United States indicates that early exposure to science and technology could change women’s perceptions of IT programmes. 
Brazil Brazil is one of the few countries in the developing economies where the growth in the software sector has boosted the IT labour market. Contrary to the expectations that this sector, due to its dynamic and multidimensional development, would open up new possibilities for women to move across the various occupational hierarchies, it has resulted in constructing and maintaining gender differences and in creating male hierarchies. For instance, case studies conducted by Soares (1989) showed that women accounted for a major share of employment only in jobs related to data entry. In the largest firm studied, around 60 per cent of the data entry and data preparation staff were women. In another firm, women were responsible for 40 per cent of total computing jobs, but while 87 per cent of data entry employees were females, only 37 per cent of programmers and analysts were women. These findings appear to support the broad scenario outlined by Cockburn (1985), that the generation and diffusion of information technologies has not substantially altered the traditional pattern of work. Another case study (Fatima Janine Gaio, 1990) has been conducted to examine the employment pattern of women in software firms (Table 2 ) in the mid 1990’s. This study has tried to find the concentration of women in two major work activities; operational work and developmental work. It is observed that both the firms taken for analysis (Alpha & Gamma) seemed to have employed large numbers of workers at the operational level of data processing, and women account for a significant share of these jobs. The Alpha firm employed around 54% (N=2703) of computing staff in its total workforce. Out of these 78% (N=2115) are employed at the operational level. About 52% of these jobs (N=1100) at this level are held by women, representing around 79% of the total computing staff. In other words, women’s share in firm Alpha is found to be higher at the base of the operational pyramid, viz. data entry and data preparation and production control technicians. The same firm employed 148 programmers, 375 application analysts and 65 system analysts to carry out the software development work. Women accounted for 32% in the development work and they are distributed in the order of 27% in the categories of application analysts and 15% in system analysts. Table 2 illustrates the work pattern of male and female computer workers in the firm Alpha, Gamma and Beta. Europe An examination of women’s position in the IT labour market in the European countries would be more meaningful if they are analysed on the light of women’s status in IT education at the tertiary level. Figure 1 presents the proportion of women students in mathematics and computer science courses in the European Union (EU) member states. It is observed that there exists a marked difference among the member countries with respect to women’s education in IT oriented disciplines. While the Netherlands, Belgium and Finland have less than 20% of female students in these academic disciplines, in Portugal, Italy and Sweden more than 30% of the students are female. Nevertheless, this picture cannot give a clear idea of the enrolment of women in computer science, since in some countries, like in Germany the proportion of women studying mathematics is much larger than those studying computer science, (Statistisches Bundesamt - Hochschulstatistik 2001). In Germany, several initiatives, both from the state as well as from private companies like IBM, encourage girls to study computer science and retain them during their study years in this still predominantly masculine field. Though, there is an increase in the enrolment of women in computer science studies in the last years, it has reached only up to 15% of the total computer science students in German universities. In polytechnics this percentage is down to 13% (Statistisches Bundesamt 2001). According to a recent study in Sweden (Swedish Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communications, 2000) 28% of the graduates from IT courses are female. The Norwegian University of Science and Technology has introduced a special quota system for women in computer science studies in 1997. The results of this project have been very positive: in the first two years, the percentage of female students increased to more than 30% (OECD 2002). 
United Kingdom The software industry is the fastest growing sector in the UK (Panteli 1997), nevertheless, women remain starkly under represented in all sectors of the computing industry. Though there has been an increase in the number of women entering IT occupations since the seventies, gender equity has not been achieved in this industry in the whole of the EU. To gain a broad idea of the IT labour force in its complexity, we have to consider two important aspects. Not every worker in this sector is performing IT related tasks, since marketing, sales or other service tasks are related to this field. On the other hand, many IT workers are occupied in sectors that are not strictly related to IT production, like business or financial service sectors (OECD 2002). This difficulty to cope with the IT sector as a whole is an added obstruct to the lack of data available about women joining the IT labour force. An analysis of national statistics (IDPM Report, 1996) reveals that the proportion of women has fallen since the 1980’s from 25 per cent to 19 per cent in 1993 and in 1996 it is between 21 to 22 per cent. Fig 2 illustrates the status of women in the various IT related occupations in the UK during 1995 ( Panteli, 97). The proportion of women is higher in consumer services (27%), followed by programming (22%) and system analysts (21%) whereas they represent a very low proportion in the management positions of the IT labour force (10% or less). Regarding the changing trends from 1994 to 1995 it was observed (see Figure 3) that the proportion of women employed as IT operators and programmers and customer services showed a decreasing trend while their position in IT management, system analysis and technical support showed an increasing trend during the study period. The possible reasons for the fluctuations in the trend of women’s participation in the IT labour market may be traced to their numbers in computing education over the last three decades. It is noted that women’s entrance to the computer courses fell from 24% in 1978 to 22 % in 1981 and then to 10% in 1985. Since the mid-eighties the proportion of women started stabilising and in year 2000 it is ranging between 20 to 25% of the total enrolment in computing both in the universities and polytechnics (Ruth, 2000). Connor et al (2001), also has cited the fluctuating trend in the percentage of female computer science graduates –21 percent in 1998/1999 as compared with 22 percent in 1994-1997 (Millar and Jagger, 2001). 
Women’s substantial under repre-sentation in the core ICT science and engineering curricula in education systems, means that they are excluded from core ICT occupations. To increase the number of women in the IT education and training tracks, computers and the Internet should be integrated early on into school curricula to encourage girls to pursue science and mathematics courses. Greater awareness of how ICT skills could lead to a wider range of careers for women will attract them into the ICT field It is to be noted that gender digital divide is not consistent across Europe. While the UK has one of the lowest proportions of female university students in maths and computer science courses, female enrolment in Italy and Spain at university-level in these subjects is far greater, and women comprise around 50% of their ICT workforces. The Netherlands The studies by Tijdens (1991, 1994, 1997), and Hoek et al (1989) explained that women occupied a very low proportion in the EDP jobs, and this occurred when there has been a strong demand for the IT professionals. A chronological analysis also reveals that women’s share in the IT labour market has decreased constantly over the period of time from 9.4% in 1976 to 6.1% in 1986, a decrease of no less than 35%. In addition to their quantitative under representation, they occupy predominantly the lower segmentation of the job categories (table 3). In majority of the organisations, men occupy back hand technical jobs while women occupy the processing and administrative jobs. Moreover, women end up in the so-called ‘dead-end’ functions and men in what is called the ‘growth’ functions. The authors have identified that employer’s preference for male employees is the primary cause for the lower proportion of women apart from the gender socialisation practices. In addition to this, the percentage of women attending computer courses at a university or polytechnic level is very low (about 10-11%). The disparity or occupational inequality between men and women could be identified from the national statistics. However, in 1993, the percentage of females had grown to 8.9% among systems analysts and to 13.0% among programmers. Because of the fast changes in the IT labour markets, it is presumed that the gender segregation in the IT occupation will also change slowly.  Asia and Pacific Region Australia Very few desegregated data are available in Australia to show the number of men and women in decision making positions in computing. From the 1992-93 statistic it is noted that the proportion of men working at the higher-paid end of the computer services industry (as proprietors or directors and computing technical staff) is considerably higher than that for women. In contrast, the proportion of women engaged in lower-paid, non-technical work was considerably higher than the proportion of men. For instance, the proportion of men working in computer maintenance services (75%), computer consultancy service (67%) is higher than that of women, whereas women are predominantly higher in the data processing services and information storage and retrieval services (80%). The proportion of women are considerably higher in the part-time jobs also (28% women and 6% men in computer service industry and over 56% in data processing services). It is reported that the existence of a ‘glass ceiling’ in the IT firms is limiting women’s career progression (http://www.osw.dpmc.gov.au/content/ publications/stimulat.html). India The technology revolution is changing the gender calculus in India, one of the world’s most traditional societies (Chen, May Yee, 2000). Women find new independence. Women play a larger part in the expansion of software market in India and they constitute 45% of the high tech work force. Women account for 50% in the engineering colleges as well as in the software training sectors. In the organisational hierarchy, more women have occupied the responsible and high-profile positions but a few have climbed all the way up. The number of women executives has multiplied in the last few years (Kishori Gopal Krishnan, 2000). The Indian software industry is growing three different directions viz: (i) industries involved in product development; (ii) offshore software services ; and (iii) on-site maintenance and implementation services. Based on the size of the employees, the IT companies are classified as high, middle, low-end companies. The software sector in India has created a tremendous amount of new forms of work of different qualities. It is estimated that the future prospects of employment in the software sector amounts to 2 million jobs in software production and another 2.2 million jobs in IT-enabled services by the year 2008 (NASSCOM, 2000). Though IT sector has offered equal employment opportunities to the gender groups, differences are noticed in the types of activity that men and women software professionals specialize in (table 4). Surveys among the software professionals showed that a high concentration of men exists in export software firms, while women are present in higher proportion in domestic low-end and IT-enabled services. This implies that at the entry level itself there is a marked gender differential in access to employment in this sector. In addition, during personal discussions, both men and women indicated that due to domestic responsibilities a few women were unable to cope with the work intensity in high-end activities. The interviews reported that IT-enabled services provide shift-based work, which women prefer. An age-wise distribution of the gender groups reveals that IT industry is dominated by men and women in their twenties. Especially, the middle-end, domestic low-end and IT enabled firms seem to be more dependent on persons in their early twenties. The high-end firms deviate slightly from this norm, indicating a possible greater presence of experienced professionals. The sex-wise distribution of professionals across age also substantiates the above observation that the distribution is clustered in the first two-age cohorts, i.e. below 25 and 26-30. Among the sampled women professionals, a majority us in the below 30 category. And, if we exclude the women employees in IT enabled services (ITES), we could find a greater reduction in the number of women employees in the upper age groups. A possible inference is that women are less represented in middle and upper positions. The locational origins of employees reveals the absence of ‘rural brains’ in the industry. Survey reports indicated that the IT industry is urban based and it favours socially and economically favoured groups. The ‘ruralities’ have the least access to this up-coming industry. Moreover, the English-speaking criterion applicable across the range of activities is an immediate disadvantage for rural aspirant. This exclusiveness becomes even more evident in the case of women professionals wherein a majority of them belong to metropolitan cities and none came from the rural districts. The IT Taskforce survey (Suriya, 1998) reported that both men and women in the software sector have shared equal qualification and experience and there seems to be equality of opportunities for women in the IT labour market. Most of the companies believe that women are intellectually on par with men and they are sincere and loyal.  The leading multinational companies such as the IBM tries to bring in more women into IT and encourages them with creches for their small ones, flexible working hours, part-time jobs and at times working from home facility. The economic independence and new social status offered by this profession attracts majority of the women to take up carriers in computing. In a country where arranged marriages are standard and brides are occasionally even killed for insufficient dowries, the software boom is offering new liberties to a small but influential group of women. These women from programmers to project managers at top companies are deciding if and when they want to marry and whether they want to have children. And they are commanding unusual respect from family members, who grant them ‘male’ privileges from household and a say in household finances. There is a greater awareness amongst families to give the equal education and career opportunities to both sons and daughters. Though there are arguments in favour of women in the IT sector, the survey reports indicated that women professionals are still a minority in this sector in India with a clear trend towards clustering at the lower ends of the job hierarchy leading to feminization of certain service activities.Issues related to mobility and growth of women professionals are caught up in the gender trap as in other service sectors or in traditional sectors. The trade off for women who opt for a career vis-à-vis the gender roles ascribed to them as care givers in the absence of adequate social security measures and other support mechanisms leaves women professionals with an ‘either-or’ situation. It is observed that the IT industry’s attitude is one of benign statistical discrimination of women by accepting the gender constraints of women. Sectors wherein women’s work participation is relatively high, there is a provision for crèches. Hence, if the IT policy claims of a gender-neutral sector are to come true, it is imperative to first address the practical needs of women professionals (ILO, 2001). Malaysia It is interesting to note that almost 60% of the women are employed in the software industries of Malaysia. Women’s share in the direct high-skilled jobs increased from 42% in 1985 to 45% in 1990, reflecting healthy inroads made by women in the professional category. On the other hand their share of the low-skilled data processing operators declined from 75% to 62% in 1990 (Cecilia Ng, 2000). However, the number of women holding top positions in the IT industry is smaller compared to their male counter parts which again may be due to the fact that IT is engineering- and technical-focused, which is traditionally a male domain. The growing participation of women in computer education is one of the factors for their higher level of entry into the IT labour market. A 1992 survey of seven of the principal private schools and colleges showed an increasing number of students enrolling in computer courses or related subjects. Between 1987 and 1992, 957 males and 1,207 females graduated in computer packages and software programmes, and 2,234 males and 1,637 females in computer courses or subjects. At the teritiary level there are almost equal numbers of female and male students. Academic programmes offered by tertiary institutions in the area of computing, informatics, information technology and related fields have grown largely because of national policies that have encouraged their development. A number of universities offer degree courses in computer science programmes. The Universiti Utara Malaysia has started a School of Information Technology, and the Kolej Tunku Abdul Rahman offers a diploma in computer science. There were 4,215 students in computer related courses in tertiary institutions for the 1990-1991 academic year. Female students comprised 51.4 per cent of total intake, 47.6 per cent at the degree level, 55.5 per cent at the diploma level and 29 per cent at the certificate level. Women are becoming numerically almost as visible as men in the software sector in Malaysia. However, they are generally clustered in the low-skilled end of the hierarchy with little prospect of career progression, while male workers dominate the technical and managerial occupations. The question is why there is such an uneven distribution of male and female employees across ICT-related occupations and what could be done to address this? The training policies in developing countries are in theory gender-neutral. In practice, however, they are less often geared to the life cycle and aspirations of men. The reasons for this paradoxical situation are plenty. One of the reasons include the lower participation of women in technical and science subjects which is reflected in their placement in low-skilled and low-status jobs in high-tech sector. The following table (no. 5) illustrates women’s domination in the non-science and non-technical subjects in their course of studies. Sex based socialization and stereotyping of women’s education and skills training is declining, but it is still a reality today. However, it is to be noted that young women in developing countries are not as affected as U.S. women by attitudes that computer science is not an attractive field to enter. For example, women comprise between 30 and 50% of students in computer science and other natural sciences in a number of developing countries like Malaysia. The other impeding factor for women’s active participation in IT sector is their family commitments. Women, particularly of child 
bearing age, find it difficult to cope with the training given either by employers or by private sector institutions. The drop-out rate for women even in the high-skilled software services sector has been alarming, including areas where there is a need for trained personnel (Ng, 2001). Studies reported that women themselves settle for a less demanding position in order to have more time for their family and to maintain the overall quality of life (Arun and Arun, 2002). Conclusion A closer look at the status of women in different occupational specialties shows that despite their increased representation, women do not have equal access to thedifferent levels of occupational hierarchies. They are over-represented in some types of lower-level jobs (e.g. programmers and operators) and under-represented in higher-level jobs (i.e. project leaders and IS managers). Computing, therefore, has remained a gender segregated, male-dominated occupation. It can be said that the high-tech industries which are looked upon as ‘great equalisers’ do not give adequate berth for women’s occupational development nor do they necessarily produce an integrated workforce and equality of opportunities for men and women (Strober & Arnold, 1987). It is high time now to look beyond the ‘add more women’ approach towards the fundamental nature of technological work.
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