June 2016
Featured in this insight: Education, Manufacturing, engineering & industrial
New survey reveals that education may be widening the gender gap: Despite numerous industries noting a marked improvement in female attendance, according to engineering professionals, the engineering industry is only noticing an ever widening gender gap.
It has been noted, during a survey carried out by Energy Jobline, that out of all the industries engineering is the course with the biggest ratio gap for males and females and numbers are in decline. Within the industry female personnel only make up 9 per cent with as little as 6 per cent being registered engineers and technicians.
The findings also reported that the shortfall of women choosing science, technology, engineering or mathematics topics (also known as STEM subjects) was the leading deterrent for women when choosing to enter the male led engineering industry.
The study was undertaken in order to unearth the problems regarding gender that, to this day, still influence this particular industry. Along with the daunting number of men in the industry women are also finding the increasing work hours, health and safety aspects and inability to maintain a healthy family life off putting also.
The survey highlights that despite the cultural steps forward for equality between the sexes, women are still tending to favour the conventional ‘feminine roles’ within the workplace.
A national day of women in engineering recently took place on the 23rd of June hoping to increase the awareness of female engineers succeeding in the industry and endeavouring to bring more women into engineering; closing the increasing gender gap that is currently in place.
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