80pc of young men believe they have the digital skills necessary to succeed in the workplace compared to 59pc of young women.
There were jubilant scenes at this year’s Accenture International Women’s Day event, as more than 1,300 people gathered to help the company celebrate its 20th year marking the date. On a stage festooned by purple lighting – the Accenture brand colours – various company higher-ups and guests discussed the role of women in tech.
“International Women’s Day has been hugely important in terms of building a space to talk about gender equality over many years,” said Dr Michelle Cullen, MD and inclusion and diversity lead at Accenture in Ireland.
But the event wasn’t all talk; as Cullen said, the occasion mainly served as a reminder to “listen to one another, to learn from the stories of other people, but also most importantly to act”.
This point was seized upon by her fellow speaker, Dr Catherine Day, former secretary general of the European Commission. “I think we need a lot more data and a lot more reporting so that we can see if policies are working and step in and correct them if they’re not,” Day said.
“When equal pay became the law, we started paying attention,” Day said. “Now that gender pay parity is an issue, we’re actually measuring the gap and then deciding to do something about it, so I’m very keen on having independent data monitoring and follow-up – because what gets measured gets done.”
Following its own advice, Accenture released new data on gender roles in the tech sector. Like Day alluded to, it suggested that more action needs to be taken to achieve gender parity.
It found a significant gap between men and women’s attitudes to their digital skill levels: 80pc of young men believe they have the digital skills necessary to succeed in the workplace compared to 59pc of young women.
The sample size of the survey was fairly small – it was an online poll across a nationally representative sample of 500 Ireland-based men and women aged 18-24.
In spite of this confidence gap, there were plenty of women at the IWD event who spoke positively about their careers in tech and the progress being made as a result of activism and action.
Karen Odegaard, global IT managing director at Accenture, said: “I’ve been at Accenture for 16 years and I feel like there’s a lot more women now than when I started. I feel like women have figured out how they can contribute to tech … I think we need more women leaders, I think we can bring more women along, so I think that’s the next step in our journey.”
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