The Netherlands has relatively few women in IT, Belgium has caught up

The Netherlands has relatively few women in sectors such as telecom and programming, Eurostat figures show. About 21 percent of workers in those jobs are women. Viewed across the EU, this is more than 26 percent.

Belgium has been catching up in recent years. 27.3 percent of employees in those sectors are now women, according to Eurostat figures. These figures have previously been published, but have come to attention again now that the Financial Times has made a comparison between the EU and the US. In the US, 35 percent of IT employees are women, but it is not clear whether this is counted in the same way.

The majority of employees work in jobs that involve programming or consultancy. Four times as many people work there as in telecom, Eurostat estimates. About 20 percent of programmers and consultants in the Netherlands are women, compared to 25 percent in Belgium and the rest of the EU. It is unknown why the Netherlands is far below the average within the EU.