Why Women Enter the ICT Sector Later: Age Structure, Career Switching, and International Experience

One of the least discussed yet most structurally important features of women’s growing participation in Georgia’s ICT sector is timing—specifically, when women enter technology careers. While previous analysis has shown that women’s employment in ICT is expanding rapidly, BTU’s Digital Ecosystem Digest (2025) reveals that this growth is occurring at a very different point in the life course than for men. Women are not only entering ICT through different pathways, but also much later, a pattern that closely aligns Georgia with broader international trends.

According to the report, the median age of women employed in ICT professions in Georgia is 41, compared to 29 for men. Around three-fifths of men working in ICT are under the age of 30, whereas among women, those under 30 account for less than one quarter of the workforce (BTU Digital Ecosystem Digest, 2025). This age gap clearly indicates that for most women, ICT is not an early-career choice but a mid-career destination, reached after accumulating experience elsewhere in the labour market.

This contrasts sharply with the conventional narrative of technology careers, which assumes early entry through formal education followed by gradual professional progression. In Georgia, women’s engagement with ICT is far more likely to take the form of career transformation rather than career initiation. Many women arrive in the sector after working in administration, finance, education, marketing, media, or service-related roles—bringing with them established professional identities rather than student or junior-worker status.

International research suggests that this pattern is increasingly common. Across OECD countries, women are significantly more likely than men to enter ICT occupations at a later stage of their careers, often after an initial professional phase in another sector (OECD). World Bank analyses similarly point out that social norms, occupational segregation, and expectations around care responsibilities have historically discouraged women from choosing technology as a first career option, pushing ICT into the category of a “second choice” profession for many women (World Bank).

Georgian data reflect this global dynamic in a particularly concentrated form. Women’s late entry into ICT is closely linked to the prevalence of non-formal and alternative skill acquisition pathways. Self-learning, short-term training, reskilling programmes, and on-the-job learning play a central role, especially for women who already possess general work experience, organisational skills, and professional confidence. These attributes are often developed over time, making mid-career entry both more feasible and more attractive than early entry.

In international labour-market literature, this phenomenon is increasingly described as career switching into tech. OECD and ILO analyses show that as digitalisation accelerates, technological skills are becoming less tightly bound to age or initial education. However, women are disproportionately represented among those who take advantage of these flexible entry points, precisely because traditional technology pathways were less accessible to them earlier in life (OECD; ILO).

From a comparative perspective, Georgia stands out because women’s ICT employment growth is driven largely by the inflow of experienced professionals, rather than by cohorts of young graduates. This has mixed implications. On the positive side, it diversifies the ICT workforce by incorporating skills from business, communication, project management, and customer-oriented fields. On the negative side, late entry often compresses career timelines, forcing women to acquire complex technical skills rapidly while competing with peers who have accumulated longer sector-specific experience.

International evidence highlights similar risks. OECD and World Bank studies indicate that late entry into technology careers can be associated with slower promotion, limited access to leadership roles, and greater career instability, particularly where formal credentials and age-based norms continue to shape advancement opportunities (OECD; World Bank). These challenges are especially relevant in fast-growing ICT sectors like Georgia’s, where internal career ladders are still evolving.

At the same time, international experience also shows that late entry into ICT can become a structural advantage if labour-market institutions adapt accordingly. In the European Union and other OECD economies, increasing emphasis is being placed on lifelong learning, recognition of prior experience, and skills-based career progression, allowing experienced professionals to integrate more fully into technology sectors regardless of age (OECD; ILO). Georgia’s current trajectory suggests that it is already operating within this model, even if formal institutional frameworks have yet to catch up.

Ultimately, the age structure of women in Georgia’s ICT workforce should not be seen as a demographic anomaly. It reflects a deeper transformation of digital labour markets in which careers are no longer linear, front-loaded, or strictly tied to early educational choices. Women are entering ICT later—but doing so rapidly and at scale, placing Georgia squarely within a global shift toward more flexible and non-linear technology careers.

Understanding this dynamic is critical for the next stage of policy and research. If education systems, labour-market institutions, and employers fail to accommodate late career entry, current gains in women’s ICT employment may prove fragile. If, however, these pathways are formally recognised and supported, Georgia could emerge as a case study in how technology sectors evolve beyond age-bound and traditional career trajectories.

The BTU’s full study — “GENDER DYNAMICS IN THE ICT SECTOR IN GEORGIA: A DATA-DRIVEN OVERVIEW OF GAPS AND TRENDS” — is available at the following link.