Women's representation varies among sectors.

 

To close the gender gap in science, tracking overall participation needs to be supplemented by an understanding of which areas of science women are contributing to and leading in, as well as those from which they remain underrepresented.

The business sector continues to show the lowest gender balance across the science and innovation ecosystem, with a global median of 29.8% (Figure 4). Women are underrepresented in the private sector research workforce in 82 of 95 countries with data for this sector (86%; Table 1). There is substantial variation, with national shares ranging from negligible levels in some countries to a high of 59% in Botswana (Figure 4). Just eight countries have an equitable proportion of women working as researchers in the business sector, namely Algeria (53.8%), Bosnia and Herzegovina (54.7%), Kazakhstan (53.1%), Kyrgyzstan (53.4%), Mongolia (50%), Mozambique (50%), Namibia (45%) and Uruguay (48.5%). Women are slightly overrepresented in Bolivia (55.6%), Botswana (59.3%), Republic of North Macedonia (56.5%) and Trinidad and Tobago (57.1). Among countries with the largest populations of researchers, the business sector is clearly the furthest from gender parity (Figure 5). Far more countries are closer to parity in the higher education9 (median: 43.4%), government10 (43.3%) and private non-profit11 sector (40.6%) (Figure 4). However, national values range widely from 0% to 100% women for a given sector, with many of the highest values seen in countries with very small workforces where the hiring of a few people can drastically shift the percentage of women. Approximately one-third of countries have achieved gender parity among researchers in the government and higher education sectors (Table 1). The presence, or absence, of women in visible leadership roles in higher education is uniquely influential for theaspirations of the next generation of women scientists and scholars. Although women now outnumber men in higher education enrolment in most countries (Figure 2), women are under-represented as researchers and in senior leadership positions.12 In 2023, just one in four of the world’s top 200 higher education institutions were led by women.13 Representation in academic leadership varies among countries and regions, with particular reason for concern in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia-Pacific. Gender disparities also persist in this research workforce: women are underrepresented among higher education researchers in 72 countries (Table 1). Gender disparities are less marked in the research workforce of the private non-profit sector, but women remain underrepresented in 40 countries (Table 1). Fewer countries report on this relatively smaller segment of the research workforce. Parity is within reach for all countries, regardless of the size of their workforce: There is no relationship between women’s representation and the relative number of researchers in a country (Figure 5). Yet among the top 20 countries in the world by relative number of researchers, only one country has crossed the threshold to gender parity, namely Iceland where women represented 46.8% of researchers in 2022.