The EU has ambitious targets for our future, striving to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 and lead the green and digital transition. To achieve these goals, we need to prioritise STEM competencies and address the current skills shortage in engineering. One strategy to tackle this shortage is to grow the workforce by encouraging more women to study engineering and enter the job market. Women have historically been underrepresented in the field, and this is still an issue, as shown in ANE’s recent diversity survey. This means that there is a lot of untapped potential that could be of significance and offer fresh perspectives to achieve the EU targets.
The Diversity Expert Group at ANE recently conducted a survey to get a snapshot of the current situation in the Nordics, which showed that women make up the minority share of our members. This is also the case with women enrolling in engineering educations across the Nordic countries.
Our members
Overall, our survey shows that there are fewer female members than male across all of our member organisations. Additionally, the number of female student members is higher than female working members across all the organisations, especially in IDA, TFiF, and NITO where it is at least 10%, as shown in the graph below.
Although these organisations come together to form ANE, they each represent a unique group of individuals with different backgrounds. Therefore, the comparison between organisations is not relevant. What is interesting, however, is the development over time within an organisation and the generational change shown by the difference between women in the workforce and female students.
| IDA | TEK | TFiF | DIFF | IL | VFI | NITO | SI | |
| Overall Women (%) | 30 | 26 | 23 | 12 | 19 | 22.5 | 25 | |
| Workforce Women (%) | 28 | 25 | 19 | 9.3 | 17 | 25 | 29 | |
| Students Women (%) | 38 | 33 | 31 | 16.6 | 23 | 34 | 35 | 31.4 |
Enrolments
As before, we can see that, overall, there are fewer women than men enrolled in engineering education. Through this questionnaire, we can compare the enrolments to various programs across different countries.
The findings reflect that chemical engineering is the most popular among women, to the point where women make up the majority of students in Finland, Norway, and Sweden. On the other hand, there is still a big gap in enrolments for electrical and mechanical engineering.
Despite sharing many similarities in the Nordics, this survey also uncovered our differences when it comes to enrolments, with some categories varying as much as 19% between countries (Denmark and Norway in chemical and electrical engineering).
| Denmark | Finland | Iceland | Norway | Sweden | |
| Overall Women (%) | 29% | 38% | 33% | 34% | 30% |
| Chemical, women (%) | 45% | 58% | 64% | 56% | |
| Civil, women (%) | 32% | 46% | 39% | 32% | 43% |
| Electrical, women (%) | 8% | 21% | 27% | 15% | |
| Mechanical, women (%) | 15% | 16% | 16% | 21% |
ANE’s Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) workgroup discusses problems and solutions related to gender, age, culture, physical and mental abilities, and more. We strive to uncover insights into the more nuanced aspects of D&I. Each year, we publish a paper on the D&I initiatives undertaken by our organisations, along with an annual update on gender representation.
Celebrating Nordic Women in Tech
ANE is one of the sponsors at the Nordic Women in Tech Awards 2024, in hopes of raising awareness and celebrating the women in STEM who are contributing to a more diverse and equal future. Nordic Women in Tech Awards 2024 will be held in Oslo on November 13th! secure your spot here