International Day of Women and Girls in Science: Kazakhstan’s perspective

History gives us many women who made enormous contributions to science and continue to do so. Yet, many of their stories remain untold. The United Nations General Assembly established the International Day of Women and Girls in Science in 2015 to achieve gender equality and empower women and girls worldwide.

The international day recognizes the critical role women and girls play in science and technology and the need to ensure they have the same opportunities and resources as their male counterparts. The day also seeks to highlight the contributions of women to scientific research and innovation and to inspire and encourage girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

«On this International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we highlight a simple equation: More women and girls in science equals better science,» said UN Secretary-General António Guterres about the international day. «Women and girls bring diversity to research, expand the pool of science professionals, and provide fresh perspectives to science and technology, benefiting everyone.»

Photo: news.un.org

In fact, worldwide, women are less advantaged in science compared to men. According to the UN, women are typically given smaller research grants than their male colleagues. Women represent 33.3 percent of all researchers (just one in three researchers is a woman), yet only 12 percent of members of national science academies are women.

Women account for just 35 percent of graduates in STEM-related fields.

In some fields, such as artificial intelligence (AI), women account only for 22 percent, or only one in five professionals is a woman, according to the 2018 World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report. UN data also indicate that female researchers typically have shorter, less well-paid careers.

The UN designates international day in regard to a particular sustainable development goal (SDG) every year. This year, it focused on the role of women and girls and science as relates to the SDGs, namely SDG 6 - clean water and sanitation, SDG 7 - affordable and clean energy, SDG 9 - industry, innovation, and infrastructure, SDG 11 - sustainable cities and communities and SDG17 - means of implementation.

Women and girls in science in Kazakhstan

Women in Kazakhstan are increasingly represented in science but face challenges, most notably gender bias. Social and cultural stereotypes perpetuate gender inequality in science, from the division of disciplines into traditionally ‘male’ and ‘female’ to archaic notions that women should raise children rather than pursue a career.

According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics, in 2018, women accounted for 46.6 percent of all students enrolled in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs at the tertiary level in Kazakhstan. Additionally, a 2018 report by the Ministry of Education and Science of Kazakhstan stated that women comprise 52 percent of researchers in the country.

The 2019 data from UNESCO shows that female researchers account for 52.3 percent in Kazakhstan. An interesting conclusion that the UNESCO report published in 2021 makes is that gender parity in Kazakhstan is a legacy of the Soviet Union.

«The persistently high ratio of women researchers in many European and Asian countries is a legacy of the Soviet Union, which valued gender equality. This is true, for example, of Azerbaijan (59 percent), Georgia and Kazakhstan (53 percent), Serbia (51 percent) and Armenia (50 percent),» reads the report.

However, there is also no guaranteed correlation between how wealthy a country is and its success in achieving gender parity.

«Even OECD countries leading in gender equality rankings have a share of women researchers that hovers around the global average, such as Finland (33 percent), Norway (38 percent) and Sweden (33 percent),» said the report.

The latest data, however, is not available. Like in many other countries, there may still be gender disparities in certain fields and levels of leadership within the scientific community. To encourage greater gender equality in science, Kazakhstan has implemented policies and initiatives to support women in STEM education and careers.

Yet, more needs to be done. According to UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous, a «paradigm shift» is needed globally.

«Existing initiatives have proven inadequate. Change for girls in science requires a paradigm shift, a commitment to long-term, sustainable programs and initiatives that acknowledge structural barriers and work to remove them. It must span educational reform, with new curricula that foster girls’ curiosity in scientific discoveries from an early age, including science and technology subjects through primary school,» she said in her statement published on UN Women's official website.

The role of women in Kazakhstan’s science is important, said Kazakh Minister of Science and Higher Education Sayasat Nurbek during the international scientific conference themed Family and Demographic and Gender Policy at a New Stage of Development of Kazakhstan held in Astana in November 2022.

«In general, the role of women in science has grown. As an example, biologist Kunsulu Zakaria, who developed the QazVac vaccine against coronavirus. As the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, we will fully support the policy of gender equality, promote and ensure equal access of women to science, and higher education, including management functions,» said the minister.

Instilling the importance of gender equality starts from early childhood. It is through how children learn to perceive the world that gender stereotypes emerge. In her latest interview with a Kazakh media outlet, Gaukhar Nursha, a gender specialist at the United Nations Development Program in Kazakhstan, said the recent analysis of the content of school textbooks showed that female characters in STEM were less than one percent or none at all.

She stressed that this creates a distorted understanding in children’s minds that success in a particular profession is related to gender, not other factors.

Increasing the presence of women in decision-making is a must. Women’s voices are essential to ensure national and local agenda is inclusive. A sustainable and equitable future cannot be a reality if women are not considered, and this applies not only to science but all other important areas of life.