WITS over the past 20 years has identified and undertaken a number of initiatives in areas relatiing to women's participation in SET. These initiatives included the Recruiting and Retaining women in SET. Returning women to technical careers was the natural progression for the organisation and was the impetus to create the Re-Enter programme. WITS, as a voluntary member funded organisation, has limited resources and as such needs to be pramatic in it's approach to projects by seeking out others both in europe and further afield who may have already developed initiatives to address particular challenges. In this case WITS identified the EU funded RETURN programme developed by the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET as a starting point to model the Re-Enter programme on.  Where possible the programme leveraged the learnings and experience of the RETURN programme.

Why it was undertaken?

The main hypothesis is that there is untapped resources – women with qualifications and experience in science, engineering and technology (SET ) who are are not in the workforce.  The pilot was aimed at exploring this hypothesis and looking at the barriers to women in SET returning to a technical career after a career break. 

Northern Ireland (NI) labour market

According to the September 2009 labour market bulletin on women in Northern Ireland [1] 60% of all students enrolled at the NI universities are women (2007/08) and 52% of all students enrolled at NI Further Education Colleges are female (2007/08). Of those full-time undergraduates enrolled on the first year of science courses at the NI universities 40% of students are female (2007/08) and women at Northern Ireland universities accounted for 17% of first degree graduates in engineering and technology, 31% in mathematics and computing science and 52% in physical science in 2007/08. In mathematical and computing sciences, 54% of total enrolments at NI Further Education Colleges are female (2007/08). Of the total enrolments on science courses at the NI Further Education Colleges, 30% are female (2007/08).

The bulletin also highlights that 38% of working age inactive women were unavailable for work due to family/home commitments, compared with 8% for men. So while the numbers pursuing careers in STEM, as indicated by the  number of females pursuing courses in these areas, are high, women still have to reconcile family/home commitments with pursuing a career.

         Republic of Ireland (ROI) labour market

In the Republic of Ireland from 1997 to 2007 the percentage of women in SET has grown by over 10%  from 38% to 48.72%,  compared to a 7% growth of men in SET from 29% to 36% [2]. This indicates that the significant investment by government, in third level institutes and in industry is attracting more people into SET careers and the percentage of women is growing at a faster rate.

Recent unemployment figures show that unemployment rate among women is ~130,000 as a result of the current economic downturn.

In addition to these growing numbers of unemployed, the 2006 Republic of Ireland census reports that there are ~11,000 women who have a qualification in SET who are currently not in the workforce

[3].  There is very little known about their level of qualification or the reasons why these women are not participating in the workforce. A portion of these women were the target pool for the Re-Enter pilot programme.

Women's careers tend to be cyclical as opposed to linear. The Re-Enter programme explores the impact of career breaks on a woman's ability to return to a technical career. It is aimed at building on, and protecting the investment made to date in this key area and in supporting of the 'Smart Economy'.

 When qualified and experienced women leave the workforce (either voluntarily or through redundancy), there is a high risk they will find it difficult to return to a technical career once opportunities become available. This represents a significant loss to the economy. A recent European Commission study indicates that “science and technology are changing at ever-increasing speed, which makes it difficult for scientists to re-enter these fields after taking time out for their families, as their knowledge may become out of date after even short periods away from work”

[4].