By Stefania Fabrizio, Florence Jaumotte, and Marina M. Tavares
Men hold about 70% of the world’s polluting jobs, so one might think that they have most to lose from the transition to cleaner energy. After all, they risk finding themselves out of work as countries close down dirty industries in a push to decarbonise and reach net-zero emission targets.
Yet our analysis shows that women are also at risk of losing out over the course of the transition. That’s because too few women study the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects that are vital to the green jobs of the future.
Women are much more underrepresented in green jobs, which improve environmental sustainability or reduce greenhouse gas emissions, than in polluting jobs, those in industries with per-worker emissions in the top 5% of polluters. While most workers work in neutral jobs, that gap is important because green jobs, which already employ one in 10 workers, are poised for much faster employment growth as the world shifts toward a sustainable economy.
For example, just 6% of women who work in advanced economies hold green jobs, compared to over 20% of working men. Green jobs employ an even lower share of women in emerging market and developing economies.
This is significant because green jobs command a substantial wage premium over other jobs in the economy, even after accounting for workers’ education and experience, as our calculations based on several representative countries show.
In Colombia, for example, the wage premium is 9% for men and 16% for women. This wage premium highlights another reason women stand to lose out: they may be missing out on higher-paying opportunities.
The gender gap in STEM education is one of the biggest barriers to women getting green jobs. These skills are essential for engineering, renewable energy, and technology sectors that drive innovation. But women remain underrepresented in STEM fields despite making significant progress in higher education.
Women account for less than a third of STEM graduates in many countries, leaving them less prepared for green jobs that will shape the future labour market. Without targeted efforts to increase such participation, the green transition may worsen workforce gender inequality.
Addressing the underrepresentation of women in green jobs has significant economic and environmental consequences. Countries with a bigger share of STEM-educated workers and stronger gender equality policies tend to have steeper reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in response to climate policies. Emissions intensity in these countries is 2 to 4 percentage points lower, our research shows. STEM education drives green innovation and gives workers the skills they need for green jobs.
Policymakers should lower these barriers by giving women incentives for STEM education and ensuring equal access to green jobs. This includes early STEM exposure, mentorship, and public-private partnerships.
Ireland, for example, tripled its share of young women earning STEM degrees in the space of eight years by integrating STEM subjects across all education levels, with a focus on early education for girls, in addition to adopting gender-focused curricula and providing specialised training for educators.
In addition, policymakers should support women’s participation in the economy by reducing labour market barriers, improving access to finance, reforming legal frameworks, and increasing board representation. This will make the green transition more inclusive and improve the effectiveness of climate policies.
The road to a sustainable economy must be paved with inclusivity. The more that both women and men can contribute to, and benefit from, the green transition, the better off we’ll all be.
The authors all work at the IMF. This article was originally posted here.
24 Comments
NZ looks pretty good in the above chart too, take the age range down to 28 or 29 to allow for women who leave the workforce for children and I imagine that would tip the balance of STEM 'Green' (whatever that means) positions towards women.
If we want to obsess with social trends we should be more worried about the overall under representation of male students in the tertiary sector.
Construction and engineering companies in the West have had soft quotas/bias towards female candidates for a while now. Considering the shrinking economic opportunities with so much being increasingly offshored to cheaper destinations, you'd be better off picking a trade that is not on the radar for gender equality rather than being constantly overlooked for jobs and promotions.
Apparently, you commit a crime the moment you are born in these countries as a white male and should be prepared to face "social justice".
Er not in NZ. We have no quotas or hiring policies of such. Indeed we barely even have rules to attempt to hire from within the country first before bringing in 50 scammed migrants on fraudulent visas for the equivalent of one real job.
In essence you are using already debunked misinformation that has no relevance to this country.
Even taking the Tech & IT sectors it is well known gender discrimination exists, is widely prevalent in the largest companies and severely impacts hiring and promotion. Even office bullying cases which involved women being forced to sacrifice their own roles because they were raped by colleagues or physically threatened. So yeah you want to claim soft quotas, yet you seem to have a very big blind spot on the very hard copy legal cases and evidence of real discrimination and antagonism in a major tech companies towards older workers, women, PoC, LGBTQI and disabled people in STEM roles.
But hey I get it. competition is hard for you and you cannot operate when forced to act with any degree of professionalism & ethics. You want to remain a cushy non performer entitled to a guaranteed spot simply on the basis of your birth with physical characteristics, (not for any actual skills or competency) with open antagonism towards more then 50% of your market & the population at large.
We have no quotas or hiring policies of such.
You've clearly never worked in government or management in larger organisations. These discussions do happen, and people 100% get picked for gender and diversity, it just is kept in the management and leadership discussions. There are goals to get better representation for women in certain areas and the only way to do this is to hire women for said areas. This takes away from meritocracy and sometimes the best candidate doesn't get picked, regardless of sex , gender or preferences.
Yet our analysis shows that women are also at risk of losing out over the course of the transition. That’s because too few women study the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects that are vital to the green jobs of the future.
What if women in general don't want to study STEM subjects even with added incentives? Is the solution to tell young women that despite their own career ambitions, they must study STEM subjects in order to meet a 50/50 gender quota?
Yes the leaders in Gloriavale knew that you need to start on the girls young so you can direct what their interests are in adulthood.
Just because we don't chain women to the kitchen and birthing centers through mental & emotional abuse and threat of social expulsion it does not mean we have completely cleaned up those cultural aspects that greatly influence children and direct their study during school years towards highly biased and prejudicial roles.
"too few women study the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects that are vital to the green jobs of the future"
Maybe women don't want to study these subjects? Are you going to force them?
I'm all for men/women to study and pursue what ever they want to. Focusing on equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity - Woke nonsense.
Yes the leaders in Gloriavale knew that you need to start on the girls young so you can direct what their interests are in adulthood.
Just because we don't chain women to the kitchen and birthing centers through mental & emotional abuse and threat of social expulsion it does not mean we have completely cleaned up those cultural aspects that greatly influence children and direct their study during school years towards highly biased and prejudicial roles.
Look at the makeup of arts or the advertising around maths education in NZ. We have been dumbing down and devaluing STEM subjects over the past decade to the point most the students in NZ cannot leave NCEA with even a primary school understanding of maths, physics & chemistry expected in other OECD countries. We seriously do not need to state that it is a women's choice because in many cases you can easily influence any human away from such roles when you emotionally shatter their confidence, cut the education to support their abilities and training and then socially value only the roles on the opposite side of the spectrum with strong cultural influence and direction away from STEM roles & career development. They are not seen as valuable women to a community until they are mothers according to many social leaders.
Alright fella, copy paste your extremism as you please.
Emotionally shattered confidence, right - not personal choice? You expect all areas of society to be 50/50? Are you up in arms that 90%+ of builders in NZ are male? Or do you just pick and choose what you want to be offended by.
Echo chambers bring about a lack of critical thinking.
It never ceases to amaze me how men and women exist in discrete universes whereby a man losing his job has no impact on any women at all, not even his spouse or family, and vice versa. I'm glad we live in a society where everyone is single, lives alone, and is solely responsible for their own welfare.
This heartens me, because it's removed any stress I used to feel over concerns I may lose my job one day. Now I know my wife (who cannot work for health reasons and receives no government benefit) and children will be completely unaffected.
However, should a man happen to earn a high income, well, what a selfish bastard, eh? How dare he hoard all his money and build assets for his own pleasure.
What a world we live in.
The arts majors writing these pieces love romanticising STEM qualifications as if you get to attend lectures at Hogwarts.
The ground reality is that there is a shortage of decent entry-level opportunities in NZ thanks in large to the oversupply of experienced migrants in these areas of skill shortages.
Thank you for stating the very necessary point. There is NO entry level pipeline and no career growth within most companies. In engineering you either leave NZ early on for your career or you leave the industry. We have over 1000 students applying for a handful of true entry level engineering roles in each speciality. No wonder most don't get in and many will either leave NZ or leave the industry and do something else. Even the military had limits on new hires for engineering officers and that used to be a shoe in for sure employment in NZ in the industry. NZ has been hamstringing and crippling its engineering, manufacturing, infrastructure& services, and scientific research/testing laboratories in favour of yet millions more funding stripped away given to more arts inspired surveys masquerading as medical information & marketing/branding design companies.
I have known a university class leader who was an ex stripper was able to get a 150k job in Aus right out of uni yet they would never ever be considered for work here even years later because of their visual features (seen in many interview responses). They now operate their own department and have an income close to twice that in less then 5 years (they are that good with tech & engineering they don't even need to put up with any shit from employers as they can walk into better roles at any time overseas and are constantly being headhunted globally). What drove the change in roles? access to education away from the heavy cultural influence of their family & Australia hiring being less discriminatory to those in NZ. Sadly they were really fun to party with and knew the value in good tech. Yet for multiple years of NZ engineering uni classes most of those students are not walking into solid engineering roles capable of years of work there. When teaching I remember many of the lecturers looking sadly at the class and saying most will struggle even to find employment, even in retail work at JB HIFI.
The fact NZ now has so many project failures and crippling costs due to a severe lack in engineering, stem and mathematics skills is coming home to roost but hey the taxpayers can keep bailing out our social mistakes right.
Author is clearly not STEM educated with the below conclusion drawn:
'Addressing the underrepresentation of women in green jobs has significant economic and environmental consequences. Countries with a bigger share of STEM-educated workers and stronger gender equality policies tend to have steeper reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in response to climate policies.'
Correlation or causation? Perhaps more progressive countries have greater representation of females in male-dominated industries, AND more ambitious climate-related objectives?
And ignoring the gender point implied, maybe countries with greater focus on the 'green transition' have more job/career opportunity for young people choosing what to study, therefore attracting more students to this area in general?
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