More women are choosing to continue their careers in digital health as gender diversity in the sector improves. But challenges remain, according to the Gender Diversity in Australia’s Digital Health Workforce 2024 Report.
Launched last week, the report was based on the 2023 census on gender diversity and aims to address the lack of research and data on this topic in digital health, both in Australia and internationally.
The report acknowledges there have been positive developments between the 2021 and 2023 censuses but concedes there are also areas that need further industry focus, including addressing gender pay equity, with women earning $500 – $1,500 less on average per week before tax than men.
Key findings from the report include:
- 10% more women have more than 10 years’ digital health experience compared to three years ago
- Over 97% of women believe progress and change needs to be made to reach gender equity
- 34% of women were managing others compared to 13% of men
- 55% of women felt they needed to prove themselves in the workplace compared to 50% of men
Professor Kerryn Butler-Henderson, co-lead on the project, presented the findings of the report at the Digital Health CRC (DHCRC) inaugural Digital Health Expo Series event in Melbourne last week.
“When we look at the data from the past three censuses over the last five years, we see a growing pattern across the workforce,” she said.
“The more traditional roles that were once paper-focused, such as health librarians and clinical coders, are held by older women, whereas the roles that have emerged over the past two decades, such as informatics, technology, and data science roles, are predominantly held by younger men. This is a concerning trend seen in other fields that we need to change today.”
Professor Kathleen Gray, Professor at the University of Melbourne, co-lead of the project and panellist at the Diverse Digital Health Workforce event, said elevating the status of women in digital health management, investment, research, and innovation roles can bring greater sensitivity to these issues.
“However, achieving this workforce reform has to build on a broad base of women with secure work in specialist digital health roles. The census data can help to assess, target, and overcome obstacles to women’s representation in the digital health workforce.”
Co-author of the report, Dr Salma Arabi, shared that there are implications from the findings from the report.
“We need to mandate formal digital health training, address the barriers to career advancement for women in technical fields, and consider intersectionality, such as First Nations status, disability, and migration status are creating additional workforce gaps beyond gender.”
Ms Anja Nikolic, CEO of the Australian Institute of Digital Health (AIDH) said the report revealed both progress and challenges.
“While we celebrate the strides made in increasing women’s representation and experience in digital health, it is unfortunately not surprising to see gender disparity in leadership and remuneration in a female-dominated workforce. The 2024 report underscores the urgent need to address persistent issues such as gender pay equity and the underrepresentation of women in senior roles. This also extends to all kinds of diversity, not just gender.”
View the findings of the full report here.
