Media

Media#

This page contains links to blog posts and articles related to the GeoE3 project. These resources provide insights into how geospatial data can be used to bridge the gender employment gap and showcase the innovative GeoE3 tool.

Publications#

  • Leveraging geospatial data to evaluate women’s employment opportunities in the renewable energy sector by Carolina Mayen Huerta Ph.D., Clara Ivanescu, Benjamin Herfort Ph.D., Piero Badowski,Dragos Gontariu. The Renewable Energy (RE) sector has grown significantly in response to the global climate crisis, yet women’s participation remains disproportionately low, with many confined to lower-paid, non-technical roles. This persistent gender disparity could limit the sector’s potential unless diversity is actively promoted. Traditional studies on women’s employment in RE often overlook critical spatial factors, such as access to public transportation, safety, and neighborhood walkability, which are vital for understanding women’s job access. To address these gaps, a Geospatial Women’s Employment Analytical Framework (GeoWEAF) was developed, identifying 15 key spatial factors across three dimensions: Contextual, Accessibility, and Place-Characterization. These dimensions are crucial for evaluating whether an environment supports women’s access to employment in the RE sector. The GeoWEAF was piloted in Saint Lucia to assess its practical application and effectiveness. It was designed as a decision-making tool for policymakers, offering data-driven insights that enable evidence-based decisions accounting for geographic disparities. By integrating spatial indicators into the evaluation of women’s employment opportunities, the GeoWEAF provides a comprehensive understanding of the spatial dynamics shaping women’s employment prospects, thereby facilitating targeted interventions to promote gender equity in the workforce.

  • A Comparative Assessment of Spatial Factors Influencing Women’s Access to High-Skilled Employment in Albania, Bulgaria, and Türkiye by Carolina Mayen Huerta, Clara Ivanescu, Dragos Gontariu. Women’s labor force participation remains limited in many parts of Southeast Europe and surrounding regions, including Albania, Bulgaria, and Türkiye. While prior research has examined social and institutional drivers of low female labor force participation, the influence of geographic factors on women’s access to employment has received comparatively less attention. This study addresses that gap by applying the Geospatial Women’s Employment Analytical Framework (GeoWEAF) to assess how place-based factors shape women’s high-skilled employment opportunities in Albania, Bulgaria, and Türkiye. These countries were selected due to their shared challenges in advancing gender equality in employment, as well as their differing institutional contexts, development trajectories, and stages of European Union integration, making them a valuable basis for comparative analysis. This application modifies the original framework by excluding the environmental hazards factor, given its ambiguous and non-directional effects, and by introducing spatially disaggregated representations of attitudes toward women in STEM and digital inclusion, which were originally applied at the national level. It also revises the methodology for assessing active transport to address data limitations and adjusts both the scoring and weighting schemes to better capture the contextual and spatial variation in the selected countries. The analysis reveals that, although urban areas generally exhibit higher levels of enablement, substantial intra-urban variation persists, with some areas within cities displaying levels of enablement comparable to rural regions. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating spatial analysis into gender and labor market research. Mapping underserved areas in services and infrastructure, and those exhibiting heightened vulnerability to risks, can enhance the targeting of interventions to accelerate women’s inclusion in the workforce.

Blog Posts#

Feel free to click on the links to learn more about the impact and applications of the GeoE3 tool!

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