The power of women’s contributions to the modern economy

One of the fundamental changes we can observe in modern economies is the increased participation of women in the labor market. This trend will become one of the symbols of our century. It is this optimistic part of the message, while the more mundane part is related to the fact that women are still more symbolically represented in key areas for the future.

The authors of the study “Macroeconomic Impacts of the Gender Revolution”, which was published in the early days of January this year in the pages of the journal of the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), identify two trends that can be observed in virtually all labor markets today. The first is interpreted as a demand for women. It includes the reduction of discrimination against women in the workplace, the expansion of women’s rights, technological innovations that increase the returns to intellectual skills where women have a comparative advantage, and the growth of the service sector where women are disproportionately employed. The second trend is interpreted as a supply-side bias toward female labor market participation and represents factors that increase women’s attachment to the labor market, such as advances in maternal health, contraceptive products, the advent of household appliances, the availability and cost of child care, and cultural factors.

– Today’s economic world is extremely dynamic, and the changes taking place in it are happening so fast that by the time we observe them and manage to assign new social roles to both sexes, it turns out that other factors have already arisen that will cause further changes – notes Iwona Gramatyka, the CEO of EXPO Katowice. – These are, on the one hand, the development of artificial intelligence and, on the other, the consequences of the green transition. Even if in the coming years, due to various geopolitical conditions, we will see a slowing down of this transformation, no one doubts that it will continue. It will be adapted to the capabilities of the industry and its changes: both those related to technological breakthroughs and the new opportunities brought by the AI I mentioned earlier.

Change takes commitment

Meanwhile, there are still too few women studying engineering, science, technology and computer science – and these are the subjects that will determine our future. Of course, some of the work can and probably will be done by AI, but some researchers are already pointing to what’s known as AI bias[1].

In an interview with the Rzeczpospolita daily two years ago, Alicja Tatarczuk, Public Affairs & CSR Manager at Huawei Poland, said that when creating artificial intelligence, you need the perspective of different people, genders, ages, so that it works and reflects the world in the right way. Otherwise, at best we will get a bumpy and biased product.

According to a study by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), only 13% of women are employed in the creation of artificial intelligence[2]. That means that many women are working in a field that is one of the four leading technologies that will change the world. And 13% is far too few to have a real impact on the future. Perhaps it’s still an enviable achievement, since the IMF estimates that only 6% of women working in developed economies hold green jobs, compared to more than 20% of working men. In emerging and developing economies, even fewer women hold green jobs.

A recent Eurostat study shows that women make up the majority of high-tech workers in the EU in only two Hungarian regions and one Italian region[3]. While it is true that women have long made up the majority of those employed in science and technology, they are not working in key positions. Only 41% of all scientists and engineers in 2023 will be women, and this share has only increased by 1 percentage point in the last 10 years[4].

History should teach us

The first country to give women the right to vote was Finland, in 1906. In Belgium, only widows had the right to vote until 1921, and in Bulgaria, only women who had given birth to children by their legitimate husbands had the right to vote, and then only in local elections. In Portugal, they had the right to vote, but only if they had a university degree. They have been allowed to vote in France since 1944 and in Cyprus since 1960[5].

It’s hard to find a rational explanation that, like voting rights, it’s worth delaying the leveling of the playing field in AI, energy transition occupations, or new industrial technologies for the next 50-plus years.

But is change possible? What is the best way to go about it, and does it make sense to break down the reluctance of high school graduates to study technical sciences?

Meanwhile, in the report “What’s the power of a woman’s wallet?” published by Bank of America, we find that not only are women earning more and more, but their participation in the labor market is also increasing. As a result, they have become one of the most important drivers of the U.S. economy in recent years. It will be interesting to see whether this could also be the perspective for Poland and Europe. Sociologist Katie Jgln wrote succinctly on the Medium platform: “Everyone tells us that if women want equality in the workplace, they should act more like men”[6].

On April 4 this year we invite you to the conference “Modern Woman – Leader of the Future”. In the hospitable interiors of the Vienna House Easy by Wyndham Hotel in Katowice, we want to talk about entrepreneurship, green skills and women’s perspective on AI, as well as difficult issues related to succession and the labor market.

We will also return to the topic of women’s participation in entrepreneurship during the two-day conference Industry 5.0 – Technology, People, Development, which will take place on May 21 and 22.

[1] https://www.sztucznainteligencja.org.pl/czy-algorytmy-sa-uprzedzone-jeszcze-jak/.

[2] https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2024/10/07/why-women-risk-losing-out-in-shift-to-green-jobs.

[3] https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/01/27/high-tech-jobs-these-regions-are-hiring-the-most-women-in-the-eu.

[4] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20240613-2.

[5] https://www.robert-schuman.eu/en/european-issues/739-2024-a-european-political-year-through-the-eyes-of-women.

[6] https://medium.com/the-noösphere/in-men-overwork-is-rewarded-in-women-its-seen-as-incompetence-9328e6f239f9.