What brings women into ehealth? Women’s career trajectories in digital transformations in healthcare
Cajander, Å., Corneliussen, H. G., Myreteg, G., & Dyb, K. (2020). What Brings Women into eHealth? Women's Career Trajectories in Digital Transformations in Healthcare. In M. Macedo (Ed.), Proceedings of the International Conference e-Health 2020 (71-77): IADIS Press.
Digital transformation of health care services is addressed world-wide in order to more efficiently meet the patients’ information and health care needs. However, little is known about the people working with this transformation, where two traditionally gendered fields meet; health care and IT. While work with digitalization generally is dominated by men, digitalization of health care services involves a large number of women. This case study explores the career trajectories of women working with the digital transformation of eHealth services. Who are the women in this eHealth project, and how did they come to working with this digital transformation? The analysis shows different types of trajectories that brought the women into eHealth transformations: The first illustrating women who were pushed into working with eHealth by their job descriptions, the second showing women using eHealth as an escape route from something else, and the last trajectory showing how women stumbled across eHealth and decided to stay on. This has implications for the educational system, and points to the need for being able to study computer science later in life. It also calls for a better understanding of what drives women in transformation processes.