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Women Employment and Information Technology A View from the United Kingdom

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The Information Society: Evolving Landscapes

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Abstract

WOMEN represent more than fifty per cent of the United Kingdom’s popu­lation, constitute forty per cent of its workforce and yet account for less than ten per cent of its computer personnel [Women’s National Commission, 1984]. In its early days, computing was seen as a growth industry that provided an important field of opportunity for women. It may again be seen in that light. In the late 1980s, the information technology industry, cognisant of skills shortages in its field, has realised that attracting a female labour force may be one means of relieving this crisis. Throughout the 1980s, feminists in the computing profession, educational­ists, and labour market and labour process theorists, all discerned a number of problem issues affecting women in relation to information technology, computing and engineering.

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Authors
  1. Diane Whitehouse
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut d’Informatique, Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix, Namur, Belgium

    Jacques Berleur

  2. Faculty of Library and Information Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

    Andrew Clement

  3. British Computer Society, London, UK

    Richard Sizer

  4. London Business School, London, UK

    Diane Whitehouse

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Whitehouse, D. (1990). Women Employment and Information Technology A View from the United Kingdom. In: Berleur, J., Clement, A., Sizer, R., Whitehouse, D. (eds) The Information Society: Evolving Landscapes. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4328-9_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4328-9_21

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-387-97453-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-4328-9

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