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Jon Excell
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Why aren't there more women engineers?
New figures suggesting that the number of women pursuing a career in engineering is in decline make worrying reading for the UK’s technology sector.
According to the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s (IET) annual workforce survey, despite a raft of initiatives designed to engage women (including the IET’s own young woman engineer of the year competition), progress in addressing industry’s gender imbalance appears to have stalled. Not only does the UK have the lowest proportion of female engineering professionals in the EU (just 8.7 per cent) but the IET points to decline in the number of female engineering technicians from five percent to three per cent since 2008.
Whatever the reasons for this, it certainly has little to do with any gender-based predisposition. In the world’s industrial superpower China, more than a third of the engineers are female, while here in the UK female students regularly outperform their male peers in STEM subjects at GCSE.
And yet in the UK, post GCSE, the gender imbalance starts to kick in. At A-Level STEM subjects are dominated by males: according to the latest figures from Engineering UK Just 22 percent of last year’s A -level physics students were female. In Higher education the gap widens further, with women making up just 12 per cent of those enrolling on engineering courses. While away from academia just four per cent of the UK engineering apprenticeships are female.
The reasons for this are complicated. It certainly seems that the pattern is set early and that the perception and engagement issues that industry continues to struggle with are at their most pronounced when it comes to young women. But it would also be naïve to suggest that misconceptions are the only problems and industry itself is completely free of sexism.
While the reasons for industry’s gender gap may be hard to fathom, one thing is certain: as the skills gap begins to bite, it’s vital that the UK capitalises on the skills of all of its available talent.
Failure to promote careers in engineering for women will mean that we will continue to miss out on 50 per cent of the available talent, an oversight which could have serious repercussions for society and the future strength of the economy.
What do you think could be done to encourage more women into engineering? Join the discussion and have your say on our new forums.
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Readers' comments (57)
Justina | 20 Jul 2011 12:46 pm
To be a practicing engineer is time consuming and stressful. As a woman you need a lot of time for your family. So as a young lady that has foreseen the kind of home she wants, she definitely does not want to be an engineer.
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Carolynne Campbell | 20 Jul 2011 12:55 pm
As the above article accurately points out, we are losing all the potential female engineers before they even get to 'A-levels exams. Arguments about pregnancy, attitudes in the workplace and such, must be utterly irrelevant to the question. We are not talking about the difference between men and women, rather the difference between boys and girls. One suspects that even boys go into engineering-related further studies in spite of the low quality of our scientific education in schools. We simply fail to inspire these youngsters at the most critical time in their education; namely the early years before they specialise.
When we understand that the world of adults and the realities of the workplace have little reality to younger pupils, then we might start to comprehend why we are failing so badly. How is a twelve-year-old exposed to engineering these days? On the telly, of course. Top-gear, Formula One, Moto GP – all very much 'boy things'. Where is the exposure to provide interest and inspiration to girls? Nowhere. Not in the media, not in our schools and, probably, not in their homes.
The schools are failing to inspire, and are not even comprehending that finding ways to inspire girls is the way forward. There are many things in engineering that will inspire, but these things have to be put in front of girls in an inspirational and engaging way.
Schools are losing our female engineers and they show no comprehension of how to change this for the better.
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Anonymous | 20 Jul 2011 1:03 pm
Women always claim to have more common sense than men.
Not sure what they are thinking on not wanting to go into an poorly supported,
difficult and poorly paid job with low social recognition...
Maybe promoting engineering as a career is not the way to attract people to engineering...
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Alan | 20 Jul 2011 1:12 pm
Engineers generally work in a in industry where there is an end product to sell. To sell the product the price must be low, so engineers are paid low. Who runs the IMechE? Top people in industry! Who needs to keep the price of their product low? Top people in industry!
I have been an engineer all my working life (40 years or so) from a 5 year apprenticeship, then degree etc etc via working on some of the worlds most exotic cars (engineers can't afford them ) to working in aerospace now. My wife currently earns three times my salary - she is not a mechanical engineer and has never been to university. (She is now a quantity sureyor.)
Engineering is a vocation not a career in the UK. It is one one the hardest degrees to obtain even compared to medicine or law. Yet look at the salaries they can and do obtain, and they don't even have to get their hands dirty!
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Julian TIMOTHY | 20 Jul 2011 1:17 pm
I think it is more down to gender stereotyping occurring in schools between Year 7 (11 years) and Year 11 (age 16).
I have been a Neighbourhood Engineer and then a Science and Engineering Ambassador operating in both primary and secondary schools for almost 20 years. I have undertaken numerous K’Nex Junior Engineer for Britain involving years 4, 5 and 6 (8, 9 and 10 year olds) and girls and boys in primary school seem to have equal abilities and interests in STEM subjects in primary schools whilst activities in secondary schools have shown the drift from some STEM subjects by girls – especially from physics and mechanics/applied mathematics and chemistry to a lesser extent with girls tending to graphic design and textiles (fashion)in the design side of design and technology and away from the technology side subjects like electronics, materials technology and engineering. Just like in my day the non-academic girls did domestic science and the non academic boys did wood work and metal work!
Women can make every bit as good an engineer as men can but even when girls get beyond gender stereotyping there can be problems for them once they get out of university and the research laboratories as industry is sometimes perceived as very unwelcoming in businesses where the engineering departments are all male.
As a manufacturing welding engineer formerly involved in EU-funded Framework projects I have had to fill in several gender related surveys for women in engineering for my last employer from the happy position of having just over 50% of our manufacturing engineers as women BUT no women in design engineering among 200 + engineers. I am sure that women find some businesses daunting where the engineering departments are dominated by men compared to departments with a cadre of female engineers that demonstrate by their presence that female engineers are welcome and valued and with demonstrable career progression and career paths open to them.
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Marty G | 20 Jul 2011 1:18 pm
The answer is because it's natural: We try to legislate equality and believe that there should be a 50/50 split in everything. The fact is that there is a difference in chemical make up that displays itself in many different traits - aggression in men, nurturing in women, creativity in many gay males, as examples. You may just as well ask "why are there not more female fathers?"
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Martyn | 20 Jul 2011 1:28 pm
I am apprenticeship trained...I have an ONC a HNC and an Honours degree......I am also the lowest paid of all my social group...including all the women. Why would anyone train so long for such a poorly paid profession?...Maybe women are just more savvy....
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Paul Reeves | 20 Jul 2011 1:33 pm
This subject (whether initiated about a general need to recruit the young - and in this case women in particular) always seems to degenerate into the same familiar arguments, points and tired solutions offered (each with it has to be said have a small, but only a small amount of truth in them) – with very little head way being made, as the article states ‘despite the various initiatives made’, for example the frequent points made usually include:
• Respect, recognition and status (related to pay levels – not necessarily as much of an issue compared to other professions as made out – although of course better pay would always help). Solution proposed – legalistic imposition of the protection of the title ‘Engineer’. To me this is a defensive and ‘me too’ (recognition) attitude, which make engineering and engineers look cowardly, for want of a better term. Respect has to be argued and fought for.
• Women having babies – lots of professions have a far better gender balance; law, medicine, marketing, working for local councils and the civil service. The idea that women wouldn’t train in engineering & then ‘throw it away’ doesn’t in general make total sense when compared to other fields.
• Engineering is male dominated & sexist. That’s both something that will only be addressed as the gender balance is improved – so is at best a Catch 22 argument.
• Schools do not inspire. Well perhaps they don’t – maybe part of the problem is that instead of teaching the basic subjects (including numeracy and maths) they are being prodded from all angles to include something relevant to an endless list of ‘real world’ issues. This is a huge debate – but I think that trying to inspire (and its close cousin – be relevant) could infact be counter productive, will ultimately bore the children and stop them seeing and learning how to explore the wider world of say art and high human culture (and where engineering and science fit in to facilitate them).
There are more – and the correspondent who pointed out that we should ‘ask women’ has a point – but I feel that just asking that blunt question will shed little more light on the subject than we already have. We really do need to start looking at this subject from a more nuanced and intellectual viewpoint than the hackneyed types of analysis I’ve outlined above.
We need to consider such topics such as the roots and role of environmental thinking as well as the culture of fear and restraint about the future that we experience perhaps in a more developed form in the UK than elsewhere. Do women and young people perhaps care more about the environment than the elder (male) generation? Is the long and sometimes lonely but dedicated (and yes sometimes boring) work that has to go into an engineering project just not ‘identity defining’ enough for the younger (male and female) generations. Has society become more feminised (caring and empathathetic) for young people of both genders – such that they do not want to identify with a ‘male’ profession that traditionally imposes it’s footprint on the world? If we ask these types of questions of young people – we may get some more sophisticated answers and closer to the truth.
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Morgan Cook | 20 Jul 2011 1:34 pm
Well, it's good to see that this has sparked a lots of debate amongst all parties!
Although, I must say - there have been some strange (possibly antaonistic?) comments made...
I'm not sure if there is some of this antagonism in the comment 'Justina' has made, I'm not sure why she feels engineering has to be so stressful etc. and has decided that it must be the woman that gives up all her time for the family...?
I have been in engineering for 20 Years and it has appeared to put me at an advantage when I've had an interview, my superiors noting to me that most women they have employed have been of great benefit - becuase of their attention to detail, interpersonal skills and pride in their work.
It will still take a few years for the "old school" to dissappear. I get the non-PC-type comments all day. If one lives with a chip on ones shoulder, then these comments would really irk. To me? It's just a laugh and a joke - as long as you give as good as you get, you will be fine.
Yes. We probably do need more incentives to encourage women - but they will have to be women who aren't afraid to fight their corner (I appreciate sometimes lines can be crossed...) and don't go running to HR every time men behave as they will inevitably do - bless them! :o)
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Anonymous | 20 Jul 2011 1:38 pm
Talk to any 15/16 year old female, including my daughter, they will tell you why engineering is not a prime subject. The job perception is wrong, the money is wrong, the respect is missing and the recognition of Engineer vs Technician, Mechanic, Grease Monkey is just just visible. Better to use their brains in a city bank with millions in bonuses, Wish I had, instead of engineering until I'm 65.
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