New survey by She Loves Data and Milieu shows appetite for digital learnings
There’s strong demand from women in South-east Asia to develop their professional skills in the accelerating data economy, according to a survey conducted by Singapore-headquartered She Loves Data (SLD), a global-not-for profit organization focused on creating fairer opportunity pools for women, and Milieu Insight to gather workforce insights on learning pathways.
Survey results showed that 87% of women in the region are interested in taking courses to develop their professional skills. 44% of employees in Southeast Asia and more than half (57%) in Indonesia intend to make a career switch within the next 5 years.
Singapore female employees trailed behind the region average in terms of familiarity with digital marketing (5% vs 16% indicated ‘very familiar’). Entrepreneurship motivations were strongest among women aged 35 years and above in Thailand (48%) and the Philippines (43%) where almost half sought to upskill as they had plans to set up their own business.
Latest UN data show that the world is critically off track to reach gender equality by 2030. With UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) underscoring the empowerment of women as an important development objective, SLD aims to address the gender gap by creating equal opportunities for women in their career development.
Jana Marle-Zizkova, Co-founder and volunteering CEO at She Loves Data said, “As businesses across all industries embrace digital transformation, corporations and employers struggle to fill roles across all digital skills domains. We hope to narrow the digital competence gap with the new SLDxDigital training so women get their fair share of digital economy opportunities.”
Starting in March 2023, She Loves Data will launch its bespoke pilot digital skills training programSLDxDigital to provide reskilling pathways that will equip women with transferable skills in areas of Digital Innovation, Digital Analytics and Data-driven Digital Marketing. SLDxDigital is a certification training program spread over 3 modules, each module lasting 4 weeks. Classes will be delivered virtually on Saturdays to ensure career women can also participate.
The curriculum is prepared and delivered by experienced industry professionals. Training materials are reviewed by the Advisory Board with Georges Mao from Meta as Board Chairman, David Duboisfrom INSEAD, and together with Jana Marie-Zizkova and Priyanka Dwivedi from She Loves Data. Upon successful completion of each module, participants are awarded a digital certificate.
IT/ Computing/ Programming (33%) emerges as one of the top 3 professional courses that women in Southeast Asia are interested in taking. Data and digital analytics courses are also one of the top courses sought after by Singaporean women (38%). Nearly 8 in 10 of the region’s female employees prefer professional courses to be conducted online
Antarika Sen, PhD, Senior Researcher at Milieu Insight shares her views: “We’re currently facing a dynamic job market, reflected in our study where 25% and 17% of women in the region have changed occupations or industries respectively in the past year. Our research also reveals that among women in the region, the top motivators for enrolling in a professional course this year is the desire to improve their job performance (59%), increase job prospects/employability (44%), and make the most of their free time (39%)”.