Artikkelit
19.02.2025
Finnish-Latin American dialogue towards equality of women and girls in science: Achievements, ongoing challenges and key discussions for the future
Significant gender gaps are persisting in science, and especially in STEM disciplines and academic leadership all over the world, including in Latin America and Finland. Even though major progress has been made towards increasing women’s participation in higher education and access to high-level academic positions, there is still room for improvement. The 1st Dialogue between Finland and Latin America on Equality in Science addressed the situation and progress of women’s academic careers in Brazil, Chile, and Finland. Closing the gender gap requires long-term policies and actions supporting women’s career advancement, promoting role models, breaking gender stereotypes and fostering inclusive environments.
Gender equality in science is not only crucial for contributing to progress in wider society, but for the benefit of the quality and advancement of science and innovation itself. However, women still account for a minority of the world’s researchers in the private, public and academic sectors. The gender gap differs across scientific disciplines, countries and geographic regions, but similar challenges remain visible worldwide. According to the last UNESCO Science Report, the global average share of women researchers was 33%. Especially in the STEM fields and in academic leadership positions women remain heavily under-represented.
Following the global trend, girls in Finland and Latin America outperform boys in primary and secondary education, and the gap is widening. However, recent studies have revealed a considerable gender gap when it came to career expectations between girls and boys in schools, as more boys than girls lean towards careers in science and engineering.
Women's attainment in higher education is also higher than men’s. Decades ago, there were more male than female enrolled in and graduating from higher education, but over the past decades the trend has been reversed. However, women’s academic career development is still largely impacted by the “scissor effect”, where the representation of women decreases significantly at the highest levels of the career. For example, in 2020, only some 18% of rectors at public universities were women in Latin America, a percentage that appeared to be even lower in Europe. Especially during the last decade, globally, different actors have launched initiatives aimed at reducing the gender gap in STEM fields and increasing women's leadership in academia.
FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS IN SCIENCE! 1st Dialogue between Finland and Latin America on Equality in Science
To celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the Team Finland Knowledge Latin America (TFK-LAC) and the Consulate of Finland in São Paulo, in collaboration with Finnish universities’ UniPID network, organized a webinar on 11 February 2025 to initiate and promote dialogue between Finland and Latin America on fostering equality in science. The event focused on the situation and progress of women’s academic careers in Brazil, Chile, and Finland.
The webinar was opened by Finland’s Minister of Education, Anders Adlercreutz, and by a video greeting of Brazil’s Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Luciana Santos. The center of the event was a panel discussion between Alejandra Arratia Martinez, Undersecretary of Education of Chile, Marcia Serra Ferreira, Director of Teacher Training in CAPES, Brazil, and Jonna Korhonen, Director of Higher Education Policy from the Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland. The panel addressed the current situation and the main obstacles women appear to face in advancing their academic careers in Finland, Brazil and Chile. In addition, current policies and actions to advance gender equality in science in all three countries were discussed.
According to the discussion, in Chile, female participation in research and academic leadership has increased significantly in recent years. In Finland, half of the academic staff are women and the country excels in equal pay at universities. Brazil is one of the countries in the world with the highest participation of women in science and approximately 30% of the rectors of federal universities are women, a high proportion in global comparison. Both in Finland and Brazil, women are strongly represented in post-graduation, but the gender gap increases in academic leadership positions. Different structural obstacles as well as characteristics of academic institutions and practices were identified to be stalling women’s academic careers.
In all three countries, the gender gap in STEM areas increases with each educational level and women are less represented in STEM careers in higher education and science. Finland, Brazil and Chile all have policies, strategies and different programs to increase female representation particularly in STEM. The panelists highlighted the need to advance the conditions for women's permanence in STEM careers. It was pointed out that it is crucial to attract women and girls in the fields of technology, digital transformation, physics, mathematics and engineering, but most importantly it is critical to retain them in the field. Girls need to be attracted early on in their educational trajectories to the STEM fields, in order to keep the number and quality of female applicants for research fellowships and scholarships increasing.
As discussed in the panel, the obstacles for women’s academic career development remain the same: gender stereotypes in primary and secondary education, the lack of access to creative and leadership roles, workplace conditions, lack of support or professional networks — all current global issues faced in all three countries. There is a need for role models, to create visibility of women in higher and more solid academic positions to inspire new generations. There is also a need for robust, long-term policies and actions with cooperation between different sectors and actors. The discussion also confirmed the importance of international dialogue: International collaboration and sharing of good practices have the potential to promote institutional and structural changes towards equality in science.
This webinar aimed at initiating collaboration on equality in science between Finland and Latin America. The intention is to continue the dialogue by creating collaborative and participatory events in the future, also extending the perspectives of equality in science beyond the participation of women and girls. More than 200 persons participated in the live webinar and almost 600 persons, with their registration, showed their interest in participating in similar activities between Finland and Latin America in the future. We shall remain in contact!
The recording of the webinar is available here: Viva as Mulheres e as Meninas na Ciência! 1er diálogo entre Finlândia e América Latina sobre igualdade na ciência-20250211_151213-Meeting Recording.mp4
The event was held in Spanish and Portuguese with real time subtitles in English. Later also a version of the video with subtitles will be made available.
Writers: Eliana Tarnaala, EDUFI’s TFK-trainee and Johanna Kivimäki, TFK Counsellor, Consulate of Finland in Sao Paulo
Sources:
• UNESCO, 2019. Women in Science, Fact Sheet No.55, UNESCO. https://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/fs55-women-in-science-2019-en.pdf
• World Economic Forum, 2024. Global Gender Gap, Insight Report, World Economic Forum. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2024.pdf
• OECD, 2024. Education at Glance, OECD. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/education-at-a-glance-2024_c00cad36-en.html
• UNESCO, CILAC. An unbalanced equation: increasing participation of women in STEM in LAC 2022. PolicyPapers-CILAC-Gender-ENG-VFEB22.pdf
Photo: Screen shot by Johanna Kivimäki: The webinar included a panel discussion between Alejandra Arratia Martinez, Undersecretary of Education of Chile, Marcia Serra Ferreira, Director of Teacher Training in CAPES, Brazil, and Jonna Korhonen, Director of Higher Education Policy from the Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland, moderated by TFK-LAC Counsellor Johanna Kivimäki.