ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE IT SPHERE OF UKRAINE: GENDER ASPECT

The main purpose of the article is to analyse women's entrepreneurship in the IT sphere of Ukraine. The presence of asymmetry in the structure of the population in Ukraine is justified. The structure of employment based on gender in Ukraine is also justified. The authors describe the main factors that determine the overall employment of women. There are patriarchal stereotypes in society about the women's labour, which are present in the modern world. The socially positive value of women's entrepreneurship is revealed. The dynamics of the development of female entrepreneurship is analysed. It is shown that the high share of women entrepreneurs does not always serve as a signal of the country's high economic development. The low share of women entrepreneurs is a signal of the institutionalized discriminatory status of women in the country. Approaches to interpreting the IT sphere are analysed. The author's understanding of the IT sphere is revealed as an activity of people that are involved to the processes of development of a computerized system, storage, processing and management of data. The authors analyze dynamics of interest of Ukraine in specializations related to information technology on the example of Lviv Polytechnic National University. It is proved that the positioning of the IT sphere as a «male sphere» is changing. Women's entrepreneurship development in IT demonstrates a positive trend in Ukraine. in IT area, the number of private entrepreneurs founded by men increased by 80.6%, women — by 216.0% during the period 2016–2020. As a result, the share of women's private entrepreneurship in the IT sphere increased from 16% to 25% during the period 2016–2020. Based on the analysis of the share of women by positions in the IT sphere, it was found that women are more likely to work on non-technical positions related to HR, marketing and administration.