Assessing Gender Gaps on ICT Competences in Four European Countries

Abstract

ICT competences still represent a “stigma” attached to gender around the world. This chapter focuses an analysis on the gender gaps and ICT competences to the access workforce, by analyzing data collected in four European countries (Portugal, Poland, Lithuania and Cyprus) in the scope of a Project “EU Youth: From theory to action (ActYouth).” Within the purpose of answering the hypothesis in understanding, the youth employability, and gender division in the labor market in different regions in Europe, statistical methods were selected and tested. The 537 responses were acquired by questionnaires and interviews and analyzed concerning ICT competences. Data shows that students self-assessment and employer's perspectives of important competences for entry in the labor market. Therefore, an importance performance analysis (IPA) was performed considering the four competences, comparing importance (employers) with performance (students) of competences, and then presented by gender for each analyzed country.