Gender Equality at Work

Despite statistics that show the economic rift between men and women narrowed in 2018, it will be an estimated 108 years before we close the global gender gap, and now a new obstacle to parity looms on the horizon: automation.

Technology is rapidly changing the very nature of the way we work and live, with exponential advancements in recent years of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and automation. These emerging technologies hold great promise but also great perils that may not only replicate existing biases and inequalities, but also make them – particularly the lived experience of women – worse.

Only 22% of professionals who work in artificial intelligence are female; a gender gap three times larger than other industries. Combined with the general underrepresentation of women in industries that utilize STEM skills, female workers will be disproportionately affected by automation: they dominate industries that are at highest-risk for automation, such as retail and administration. In other words: fewer women are writing the computer code of the future workplace, but the jobs they hold are at risk of being "automated away."

Who is responsible for tackling these widening systemic problems? The worker herself? Her government? Her employer? How do recent findings on the risks and rewards of automation change the global debates about diversity in STEM education, algorithmic bias, and the evolving relationship between upskilling, work-life balance, and the gig-economy?

New America NYC, the Better Life Lab, and the Consulate General of Norway have teamed up to discuss what concrete things we can do as mentors, investors, policymakers, and citizens to expand opportunities for women in the workplace and explore interventions to reduce bias in the ways technology is designed, taught, accessed, and governed.

OPENING REMARKS

Trine Skei Grande @Trinesg
Minister of Culture and Gender Equality in Norway

Brigid Schulte @BrigidSchulte
Director, Better Life Lab, New America

SPEAKERS

Megan Garcia @meganegarcia
Senior Fellow and Director of Growth, New America National Network

Bente Kalsnes @benteka
Editor, Norsk Medietidskrift
Digital Journalism Professor, Oslo Metropolitan University

Bruce Lincoln @SiliconHarlem
Co-Founder, Silicon Harlem

Alexandra Mateescu @cariatidaa
Researcher, Data & Society

Follow the conversation online using #FutureofWork and by following @BetterLifeLab, @NorwayUS, and @NewAmericaNYC.

Please join us for a reception at 6:00 p.m. followed by the conversation at 6:30 p.m. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

The event will be live-streamed here.