[joe_mamba]

>I don't believe europeans are unable to turn around this situation in as many years as a matter of fact, it's my core beliefs

Actually, I DO believe we are unable to turn it around. I've done EE work both in Europe and in China for over a span of 10 years, and what sets China apart from Europe that enabled them to overtake us is the mindset, both at government support level AND at individual level.

Chinese operated a lot closer in mentality of the US compared to Europeans, as in very cutthroat move fast and break things, wanting to ship a new product every 6 months(!). This mentality is lacking in Europe who mostly stick to slow paced industries where there's a national security, regulatory or bureaucratic moat like aerospace, defense, telco, industrial automation or automotive, but nothing cutting edge in consumer space that's dominated by China, Korea, Japan and US.

Then there's the massive investments and support from the Chinese state that's missing in European electronics industry. To get an idea compare to the massive sums Europe invests in pharma(or life sciences) versus pitiful investments in electronics for example, and you'll get what I mean.

Until those change, we have no chance, we're just dreaming and huffing copium that somehow things will magically improve out of the blue.

>the industry is hostile to newcomers, self-taught people, women, and more.

Pretty much this, minus the hostility towards women part. I've had few women colleagues everywhere I worked in EE, there's no gender hostility or discrimination, just that young girls looking for a career, aren't really into sitting hunched down over a table and soldering and probing PCB's in a lab somewhere in a techo-park in the outskirts of town as a career, when stuff like HR, marketing, brand design in the city center, is way more hip and appealing to young urbanites. You can't force people to be attracted to a specific industry or line of work. Similarly how there's not much women in construction, welding, oil industry, fire fighters, LEO, etc and it's also not due to hostility, or how there's not too many men in nursing, HR or childcare.

> They are unemployed because no one would respect them, and give them a meaningful mission like we would

I hope you realize, you're not really selling the European electronics industry optimism here with this example of skilled people being passed on for employment.

[graemep]

> There's no gender hostility or discrimination

I disagree. There is a great deal of variation between countries and companies. My daughter is in automotive electronics (in R & D rather than manufacturing) and her employer and country are at the better end of the spectrum, but there are definitely places where it is very difficult for women.

> You can't force people to be attracted to a specific industry or line of work.

That depends on culture and upbringing. If you bring girls up to think that electronics or software or whatever is a male pursuit they will avoid it. A lot of this is set in early childhood and subtly so. Have you seen the difference in the toys little girls and boys get? Or who helps dad (and its almost always dad!) with the DIY or setting up a new gadget or similar tasks? I was my kids primary parent, so they picked up I liked and I just assumed my kids were likely to be interested in things I found interesting.

[joe_mamba]

>There is a great deal of variation between countries and companies.

Well yes, that was also part of my point. I travelled and worked all over the world in my youth and what I noticed is that women typically choose engineering careers only for the money, stability and benefits of working at engineering corporation if the alternatives like humanities, soft sciences or social/government work pay like shit and the welfare state is lackluster like it's the case is North-/Latin- America, Asia or South/Eastern Europe, not because they're really passionate about engineering.

But if you're in a wealthy welfare state, with high taxes, low income disparity and and well funded government services where a women working as a school teacher for example can take home nearly the same as an engineer while having great government benefits, like Nordic or German speaking countries for instance, then women are more likely to choose those types of humanities careers or other such careers that revolve more around interacting with people over working in engineering.

It is literally that simple. There's no 4D chess psychology to dissect. If you have easy access to easy money, most people will choose the path of least resistance. It's all transactional following Maslow's pyramid of needs. SW dev would also have far fewer people in it if it weren't so well paid.

>but there are definitely places where it is very difficult for women.

Can you explain in detail how exactly those places make it difficult for women and it's not just the correlation I explained above?

Like I'm sure there's some toxic workplaces out there, but that's the case for everyone in a lot of jobs, including(or maybe even especially) those where women are majority, like HR.

In fact, from what I saw in engineering they tend to prioritize attracting female candidates in order to try to break up the massive sausage fest of this profession even if that part is never said out loud.