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Gender Equality in the Knowledge Society (GEKS)

Submitted by shuyer on Tue, 2008-10-21 15:07.



National Assessments on Gender and STI


GEKS Scorecard - Preliminary Results
Launched at the AAAS-IAP-TWAS Workshop "A Global Movement in Support of Inquiry-based Science Education" February 16, 2012, Vancouver, BC and the Women and Minorities Networking Breakfast, Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), February 18, 2012.

The GEKS Scorecard is a collaborative initiative between Women in Global Science and Technology (WIGSAT), the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) and futureInnovate.net, with funding from the Elsevier Foundation. It was developed in response to the situation that not only are many women — particularly those in the developing world —on the wrong side of the digital divide, they are on the wrong side of the knowledge divide. Not only do they have less access to information and technology, they are poorly represented in the educational, entrepreneurship and employment opportunities in science, technology and innovation.

This scorecard profiles the interim results of a study which provides data in key areas of the GEKS framework. It is a pilot assessment of the situation of women in six countries and one region: Brazil, India, Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, South Africa, the United States, and the European Union.

Overview
Scorecard (6MB)
Scorecard - Reduced size (870KB)

National Statistics on Gender Trends on ICT: 2004-2008

Enabled Women in Knowledge Societies , i4d online, by Nancy Hafkin.

Gender and the Core ICT Indicators, Sophia Huyer, Presentation at the 2008 Global Event on Measuring the Information Society, Geneva, 27-29 May 2008.


Engendering the Knowledge Society: Measuring Women's Participation

Phase One of the project (see below), Women in the Information Society, demonstrated that contrary to what might be expected, gender patterns in Internet use do not vary equally with Internet penetration. Analysis of current national data found that women’s rates of Internet access and use will not automatically rise with national rates of Internet penetration. A range of socioeconomic and political factors affect and frame the gender divide, including social and cultural barriers to technology use; education and skill levels; employment and income trends; media and content; privacy and security and location/mode of access.

In Engendering the Knowledge Society: Measuring Women's Participation WIGSAT developed an indicator framework to measure the ability of countries to build on the contributions of women for a national knowledge economy. For this, good data is needed: Data that provide the best and most useful information on gendered opportunities and challenges, data that will allow the best decisions to be made. The report was written by Sophia Huyer and Nancy Hafkin to address options and strategies for countries and institutions to encourage women to make full, active, informed and creative contributions to the knowledge society.

The Gender Equality in the Knowledge Society (GEKS) framework is based on a gendered analysis of the major indexes of science, technology and innovation (STI), information and communication technology (ICT) and the knowledge society. It is meant to guide policy makers to better understand what sectors of the economy and society are the most strategically relevant to women’s development goals and what data they need to collect.

The framework starts with the base conditions for socioeconomic and political development which determine the ability of both women and men to contribute to the knowledge society: health status, social and economic status, level of opportunities available, level of political participation, access to resources and the enabling policy environment. The framework builds on this foundation to incorporate indicators relating to the ability of women and men to participate in the knowledge society: access to science and technology education, access to and use of technology, decision making in knowledge society sectors, participation in science, technology and innovation systems and access to lifelong learning.



It is clear that more consistent and systematic collection of sex-disaggregated data at the national and international levels is necessary to develop the policies that will allow countries to profit from the underutilized potential of their female population.

The report was co-sponsored by Orbicom, the National Research Centre of Canada, and the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and WIGSAT.

Click here to download the report.
Download the Executive Summary.


Phase One: Women in the Information Society

Launched at the
World Summit on the Information Society
November 17, 2005

Women in the Information Society, in From the Digital Divide to Digital Opportunity: Measuring Infostates for Development, Orbicom.


The economic and societal transformations of the Information Society touch all facets of daily life - economic, social, political, and cultural. ICTs facilitate information sharing and knowledge management and also provide individuals, businesses and governments with the essential networks to overcome the challenges of distance and time. Industries that manufacture and supply ICTs now make up a measurable sector of many national economies. The wide-ranging applications and effects of the Information Society have enormous implications, both positive and negative, for gender equality and women's empowerment. Information about the extent, nature and consequences of the gendered nature of the digital divide is critical if existing disparities are to be reduced and the Millennium Development Goals achieved. However ICT measurements and comparative country analyses in this area have been extremely scarce.


This panel presented the results of two ongoing studies by Orbicom and Regentic (IDRC) to: collect and assess existing sex-disaggregated data on women's participation in the information society at the international level; generate and analyse qualitative and quantitative data on women's participation in the information society at the national level; provide qualitative analysis on the factors affecting women's participation and being to suggest qualitative and quantitative indicators for measuring gendered patterns in participation in the information society.


The main finding of Women in the Information Society was that contrary to what might be expected, gender patterns in Internet use do not vary equally with Internet penetration. Women’s rates of Internet access and use will not automatically rise with national rates of Internet penetration. A range of socioeconomic and political factors affect and frame the gender divide, including social and cultural barriers to technology use; education and skill levels; employment and income trends; media and content; privacy and security and location/mode of access.


Sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency, International Telecommunications Union, Orbicom, Global Knowledge Partnership, and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).