Posted on 12/05/2017 12:44:13 PM PST by nickcarraway
As the relative lack of women in tech jobs increasingly gains public attention, a new report suggests that women workers are primed to change those numbers for good.
A report released this month on the digital abilities of U.S. workers found that women are slightly ahead of men when it comes to developing tech skills needed for employment. Created by the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program, the report "Digitalization and the American Workforce" examined Americans' progress in adapting to a rapidly more tech-heavy job market, and gave women an overall score of 48 in this area, while men received a comparable but lower score of 45.
To assess workers' ability to perform in jobs involving the use of technology, researchers looked at information on "the knowledge, skills, tools and technology, education and training, work context, and work activities required" for a wide range of industries and professions, categorized by occupations' high, medium, or low requirements for digital skills.
In total, the Brookings team examined the digital requirements and performance trends of 545 occupations covering 90% of the U.S. workforce across all industries since 2001.
After analyzing changes in those areas between 2002 and 2016, researchers found that digitalization scores rose among 517 of those 545 occupations, bringing the overall average score from a "low level" of 29 in 2002 up to a "medium level" of 46 as of 2016, representing a 57% increase.
"At the same time," they noted, "the degree and pace of change has varied widely." That includes the fact that women workers, as a group, have pulled slightly ahead of men in acquiring the digital skills required for many available jobs.
See also: Women's Advocates Sue Trump Admin For Arbitrarily Ditching Equal Pay Data
Nevertheless, the report found, men continue to outpace women in filling the most
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Like the old sexist saying goes, “women can do anything a man can do, and sometimes better....”
Of course we all know that men usually just grunt “uh huh”...and perhaps roll their eyes...
This is not consistent with real world experience
Of course they do.
I think WWII demonstrated this reasonably well.
I know that anecdotal evidence is not conclusive, but my wife still has trouble answering her cell phone that she’s had for two years. The procedure for using a Kuerig coffee make still eludes her.
They are really good multitaskers. Better than many men I bet.
I had a nice looking gal from IT at my office desktop once upon a time.
I’d say more, but I’d come across as a sexist pig, so that’s all I will say.
Having been in the tech world for the last 45 years, I do not find this to be an accurate headline. I have met many smart men and many smart women, but I would not rate one any smarter than the other. Both sexes have their good and bad apples. To take something as broad as “tech” and say women are better (or worse) than men is injecting something irreverent into the equation. It’s like saying women like apples better than men do. ( of course you go with the reasoning that if you find men and women equal in the field, then the women may very well be smarter or more determined because 4o years ago nobody handed a boy a doll and told him the kitchen was a good place for him. We men had no barrier to the sciences and i am sure the women did. In that respect I would rate women as overcoming more to get where they are in in a tech field, but that does not mean they are any better or worse at it.
It hasn’t been borne out in aviation. Experience has shown that women tend to lose situational awareness in air-to-air combat more readily than men.
Yes. Women are greater, more honorable, and superior in every way to men, and should replace men in all things. Men = bad. Women = good. Got it.
What “tech skills” are we talking about? I suspect they are taking a rather expansive view of what constitutes tech skills.
Better at typing letters in Word??
I don’t believe it nor have I seen any evidence of it during my 82 years on this earth.
This is demonstrated every morning on the freeway...
This is a deceptive headline.
Women adopt technology faster as USERS of the tech. My observations are that they’re naturals.
Just observe your wives and daughters with their smartphones playing with Facebook.
But when it comes to the DEVELOPMENT, BUILD and SUPPORT of technical infrastructure, applications and devices they lag far, far behind.
That’s where men are naturals.
And I’ve been in the tech business for 40 years...before it was even called “tech”.
What about Ada Lovelace?
To say one sex is better than another at tech is a stretch to me, and I think unfounded.
People need to understand that men and women are not just anatomically different in the obvious sense, we are also hardwired completely differently upstairs. The two sexes think very differently, and even though that is true, it doesn't mean we can't both operate the same way in the end or reach the same conclusions about things, it just means the pathways are different.
There is a hilarious video called: "The Tale of Two Brains" by Mark Gungor.
This is largely true, and if you watch the video, you know it to be so simply by watching the reactions of the crowd.
I have always thought that if aliens came to earth and looked at a man and a woman, they would think we were two different species.
I say vive la difference!
Mother Hopper, the creator of COBOL one of the widest used business programming languages and still in use today. Sharp sharp Woman.
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