Speaker
Description
Almost everywhere in the world, women constitute a minority in the STEM workforce. A frequently misconception is that the number of women in STEM is particularly low in the Global South. In fact, on plotting the percentage of women in the STEM workforce of a nation versus its per capita income PPP, one obtains an inverted U: as a country becomes richer, the percentage of women in STEM rises sharply, then falls slowly.
Economically richer and poorer countries also tend to show differ patterns of retention in STEM ; in economically developed countries, the main problem seems to be in attracting girls to studying science, whereas in developing countries, one sees a big dropout among women studying science after the tertiary level.
Of course, women in STEM in developing countries have to deal with a lack of infrastructure and resources, and also frequently face societal challenges and biases, both within and outside their countries.
One effort to address the problems faced by women physicists in the developing world is the Career Development Workshops for Women in Physics that have been held since 2013 at the ICTP in Trieste, Italy, and also at the new ICTP-EAIFR in Kigali, Rwanda. I will briefly describe the structure of these workshops, and some of their success stories.
Level for award;(Hons, MSc, PhD, N/A)?
N/A
| Apply to be considered for a student ; award (Yes / No)? | No |
|---|
