Women hold two-thirds of top IT jobs in S'pore
So declared Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Community Development and Sports Yu-Foo Yee Shun, at the press conference on the country's second periodic report to the UN Committee for the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (Cedaw).
In her introductory statement yesterday, Yu-Foo observed that women have "taken to IT jobs and matched men stride for stride."
The fairer sex have perhaps gone a step further in this industry, where "you don't need muscle but brains and knowledge," having overtaken men, who used to dominate the industry in the 80s. Women, said Yu-Foo, now fill two-third of top IT posts.
"The younger generation of women will do better than us because of it," she predicted.
She also noted with satisfaction that more female, blue-collar workers are using the Skills Redevelopment Program to become more employable.
According to a report in The Straits Times, the gender gap is also shrinking in the area of salaries.
Whereas there was a 6 percent discrepency in wages between the sexes in professional and managerial posts in 1991, this difference had dropped to just 2 percent in 2000.