Higher rates of digital skills among young girls in Cyprus

In 2023, girls aged 16-19 in the EU, as well as in Cyprus, showed higher levels of digital content creation skills than the general population, according to data released by Eurostat on the occasion of the International Day of Girls in ICT on 24 April.

However, the percentage of girls in Cyprus that have taken up coding was significantly lower than that of boys their own age.

The majority of girls copied or moved files between folders, devices or on the cloud (78.6% of all girls aged 16-19 in the EU, 92.9% in Cyprus), used word processing software (73.4% in the EU, 93.1% in Cyprus), created files integrating text, pictures, tables, charts, animations or sound (67.7% in the EU, 86.5% in Cyprus) or edited photos, video or audio files (60.8% in the EU, 68.7% in Cyprus) in the 3 months before the 2023 survey.

Additionally, 47.3% of girls in the EU (60.6% in Cyprus) used a spreadsheet software and 22.4% in the EU (26.8% in Cyprus) used advanced features of this software to organise, analyse, structure or modify data. 9.9% in the EU, and merely 1.7% in Cyprus, wrote code in a programming language.

In all these activities, girls surpass the shares of the general population across the EU, with differences ranging from 28.5 percentage points for creating files integrating different elements to 1.0 pp for advanced spreadsheet use.

In Cyprus, girls surpass the general population in all categories (except one), with differences ranging from 44.2 percentage points when it comes to word processing, to 5 percentage points for advanced use of spreadsheets.

Particularly when it comes to coding, the percentage for girls in Cyprus (1.7%) is lower than the average for the general population (5.1%) and much lower than for boys in the same age group (6.3%).

Among the listed activities, there were four in which girls participated at higher rates than their male peers: photo, video or audio editing, the use of word processing software, creation of files integrating different elements and copying or moving files between folders, devices or on the cloud.

The share of young people aged 16 to 19 in the EU who had written code in a programming language in the 3 months before the survey was 15.1%. While 9.9% girls coded, the share of boys coding was nearly double at 19.7%.

This gender gap was observed in 24 out of 26 EU countries with available data. The largest differences were recorded in Austria (26.5 percentage points), Croatia (19.6 pp) and Belgium (18.2 pp).

In Lithuania and Greece, the share of girls who engaged in coding was slightly higher than that of boys, with a difference of 3.7 pp and 2.8 pp, respectively.

(Source: CNA)