An analysis by staffing firm Human Resocia, a division of Tokyo-based Human Holdings (2415:TYO), found that Japan ranks No. 17 in the gender gap for female IT engineers among the 33 countries in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development that were tracked. It reported that 18.8% of IT engineers in the country are female.

Human Resocia noted Japan’s number is lower than the OEC average of 20.6%, “and it cannot be said that Japan is making progress in promoting women’s participation in the IT field.”

Israel ranked No. 1 with 29.5% of IT engineers in that country being female. It was followed by Ireland with 26.3% and Estonia at 24.5%.

The company also reported that Japan ranks last among 38 OECD countries that were tracked in terms of percentage of female graduates majoring in IT and STEM.

Turkey had the highest percentage of female students in the IT field with 50.3%; Sweden ranked second with 35.9% and Israel third at 32.0%.

In STEM fields, France had the highest percentage of female students with 53.8%, followed by Turkey with 50.8% and New Zealand with 43.4%.

In Japan, for the IT field, the percentage was 9.8%. For the STEM field, the percentage was 8.5%.

“This shows that the ratio of women studying the basic knowledge necessary to be successful as an IT engineer at university is particularly low in Japan, and there are concerns that the gender gap in the IT field will widen in the future,” according to Human Resocia.

The information was released in conjunction with International Women’s Day on 8 March. Data comes from the International Labour Organization and covers 38 OECD member countries.