Challenges of Women's digital inclusion in the Portuguese context

Abstract

The gender barrier in the technological area represents a significant challenge for the members States of European Union. Also, in Portugal the participation of men and women in ICT is still uneven. This position is the result of the historical evolution of the position of women in the Portuguese society. This article aims to review the digitally index of women and the level of representation of women specialists in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in Portugal comparing with the position occupied by men and the rank occupied by women in other members States of the European Union. It also intended to know the policies that have been implemented in Portugal with the aim of improving the digital inclusion of women. To achieve our goals, we supported our study in statistics data and we recapitulate Portuguese policies adopted to strengthen female representation in the digitally and ICT market. Furthermore, we looked at the 2020 European Commission report on this subject (which presents pre-pandemic COVID-19 data, 2021 (which represents data during the period of the pandemics and the period of the emergence State in Portugal) and the 2022 report (which represents post-pandemic data to understand the evolution and impact of female digital inclusion caused by the COVID-19 period. The research technique adopted is document analysis based on the systematization of statistical data from the years 2019, 2020 and 2021, reading articles, academic books on the subject and the political programs implemented in Portugal to meet the digital challenges of women. we conclude that Portugal is on the right path, however, it is still too early to assess the success of the measures implemented.