Source : THE AGE NEWS
By Lorna Beegan
Australia is facing a talent crisis we cannot afford to ignore, and the under-representation of women in high-demand roles is a key part of the problem.
Nowhere is this more evident than in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) – not because women aren’t stepping up, but because the system continues to shut them out conceptually.
Nearly half of young women aged 15–24 report no interest in pursuing STEM careers.
Time and again, the dominant narrative insists our future economic success depends on industries driven by cutting-edge technology, scientific breakthroughs, and continuous innovation. We persist with outdated structures, stereotypes, and educational models that leave women underrepresented and undervalued in the very sectors shaping our world.
This is not a problem for women to fix; it is a collective, societal failure demanding urgent rethinking. At its heart, STEM has a branding and design problem, too often signalling to girls and young women that they do not belong before they even get a chance to step in.
A 2023 report by Jobs and Skills Australia reveals that nearly half (47 per cent) of the occupations consistently in shortage are high-skill professional roles in health, engineering, ICT, and science – the very fields that should be driving national prosperity.
Crucially, roles marked by strong gender imbalances are more likely to face chronic shortages than those with a balanced workforce; highlighting how failing to attract and retain women is not just an equity issue, but an economic one.
We need politicians, policymakers, industry, and the collective force of women themselves to galvanise change and challenge the paradigm.
According to the Australian Government’s STEM Equity Monitor, women make up only 15 per cent of Australia’s STEM workforce, with even starker gaps in engineering (12 per cent) and IT (14 per cent). And the problem starts early, with new research by Year13 showing nearly half (48 per cent) of young women aged 15–24 report no interest in pursuing STEM careers.
Image is not the only problem; at the heart of women’s under-representation in STEM is a deeper philosophical issue about what we value and how we define knowledge and progress.
While we have come some way in encouraging more women to pursue STEM, these fields are still framed as highly technical, exclusive, and disconnected from human impact. We continue to privilege the mechanical, the quantitative, the product over the purpose, the meaningful, and the relational.
This narrow framing alienates many young women and diminishes STEM’s broader potential by reducing it to tools and outputs rather than connecting it to ethical questions, social responsibility, and the full richness of human inquiry.
If we want true inclusion, we must move beyond simply marketing STEM differently and instead reimagine what it means to do science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in service of people, communities, and the planet.
But education can’t do this alone.
We need more than just business leaders to help reshape how STEM is seen and experienced by young women. We need politicians, policymakers, industry, and the collective force of women themselves to galvanise change and challenge the paradigm, starting in our schools and across society.
While there has been effort by industry to support STEM pathways for girls in schools over the last decade, the scale and consistency of that support hasn’t come close to matching the challenge.
Too often the issue is treated as a box ticking exercise, rather than addressing the deep cultural and structural changes needed to make STEM genuinely inclusive.
It’s time for industry profits to translate into sustained, targeted investment in schools backed by genuine commitment, not one-off gestures or siloed programs. By investing in the next generation of women in STEM, businesses and industry are making the smartest, most future-focused investment they can.
We need a shared, long-term approach where industry, governments, and communities partner with education to solve existing problems and help young people identify the new challenges the world hasn’t even seen yet. Diverse teams don’t just improve innovation; they unlock entirely new frontiers.
A workforce that truly reflects the richness of society is far better equipped to build a future that works for everyone. Investing in our schools is not charity, it’s strategy. And it’s time we backed it with profound, collective, meaningful, and resourced action.
Lorna Beegan is the principal of Strathcona Girls Grammar.
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