Empowering Women Engineers

One of the main problems women are facing in the engineering industry is that women are underrepresented in leadership positions in both academia and the industry. This means that there has been a shortage of women engineer role models in our society. According to a statistical record, only 4% of fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2014, and only 13% of Board Directors in FTSE100 companies in STEM sectors were female in 2012. This may be one of the reasons why women engineers have been underrepresented in engineering overall. Without a fair proportion of women in directory roles, changes in the higher level of the industry could be difficult to be aware of or implemented.

Another challenge faced by women engineers is that their costs of career breaks are naturally higher than men. They need to have maternity leave when they give birth to babies, and childcare has been treated like a women’s job. This is a common problem for many industries, but career break is particularly unfavourable in engineering because the industry believes that technologies are changing very quickly and once someone takes a break, their knowledge and skills would be gone [1]. Returning to work is reported to be either difficult or very difficult for 61 percent of STEM professionals on a career break and women are bearing more pressure from this challenge. However, Natalie Desty, director of STEM Returners, said: “There is a perception that a career break automatically leads to a deterioration of skills, but the reality is that many people on a career break keep themselves up to date with their industry; are able to refresh their skills easily when back in work, and have developed new transferable skills that would actually benefit their employers. STEM organisations are clearly missing a major opportunity to get highly skilled, talented females back into the industry.” As the engineering industry is still having a huge demand for talents, it is beneficial to exploit the potential of returners.

Another major challenge for women engineers in industry is the gender pay gap. This comes from the gender gap in career level and the unequal salary starting point. The gender pay gap increases after the age of 50-60. This may come from the fact that it has been more difficult for women to enter leadership positions as their ages increase. An unequal salary starting point may lead to a greater difference in income with time between male and female engineers because the pay growth is calculated as the percentage of income rise compared with the existing salary. And gender pay gap increases for a certain proportion of women after their maternity break. Despite all these disadvantages in the gender pay gap for women engineers, it is important to clarify that the gender pay gap issue is actually less significant in the engineering industry. According to statistics, the gender pay gap in engineering is around 6% smaller than that of all UK workers and although 14% more male engineers receive bonuses than females, the gender bonus gap is a lot smaller in engineering [2]. This indicates the potential to attract more women engineers to the industry by balancing the gender income gap.  

Education has always been a key in gender issues. In The Women Engineer journal in 1920, Hetty G Grouse wrote: ‘I am quite convinced that if we are to evolve women engineers, we must train them early’. In nowadays, attracting more girls to study engineering and educate them well is still one of the major priorities for improving gender equality in engineering. Currently, although girls are having equal rights in education in the UK, female engineering students are still the minority in UK higher education and apprenticeship [3]. The problems occur long before higher education. Girls are already underrepresented in STEM-related GCSE and A-level subjects, despite the fact that they are not underperformed in these subjects compared with boys. 90% of girls believe that engineering is suitable for both boys and girls, however, only 20% - 35% of them believe engineering is a desirable career. They are not having faith in choosing engineering as a career.

The reason for this issue is rather complex. One of them is the lack of female engineer role models in society. According to a survey, around 40% of women engineers are inspired by a family member working as an engineer. This means that having someone being there as an engineer in childhood and at different stages of their growth is crucial. Therefore, it is very important for girls who are not living in an engineering family to access or at least be aware of engineering role models in society. Secondly, girls are not exposed to enough information about engineering when they make their career decisions. Statistics show that only 15% of women engineers chose their career paths based on career advisors’ suggestions. This indicates the lack of information about the engineering industry at schools overall. Moreover, engineering itself does not have a very attractive image to girls nowadays. The images of engineers nowadays often involve people wearing helmets and uniforms and doing heavy work in an untidy environment. However, it is no longer true now. Engineers can tackle different engineering problems in the industry with a computer, and the increasingly high level of automatic allows the hard work in manufacturing production lines to be done using different robotic arms. And the public needs to be aware of this, therefore it is becoming necessary for engineering to rebrand itself.

Gender equality in engineering is a very complex topic and it requires many generations of engineers and people from different parties to work together. Some suggested measures to tackle current gender inequality issues are listed as follows:

1. Education is always the key. It is important for academia and the industry to outreach and bring them closer to girls, with projects, talks, and forums, etc. For example, more projects providing the experience of real-life engineering education/research/industry are useful for school students to gain a better understanding and hopefully interest in the field. However, the reality shows that the above measures can only reach students who are already interested in STEM. It is also important to actually outreach to students with potential interests and abilities to study engineering. One way to achieve this is to provide more information to teachers and parents. It helps when teachers, parents, and advisors have some understanding of engineering and provide their influence and recommendation to girls when they have to make their career decisions.
2. Different parties in society need to acknowledge the value of engineering. It is true that engineering and women engineers have been developing products that make people’s lives better. Therefore, it is important not to forget about engineering when people talk about science and technology progression. Also, have women engineer role models who are recognised by the whole society is equally important. With more women engineers in leadership positions, the voice of women engineers can be better heard, and company or institutional policies can be more friendly to women engineers. It can also help to influence more male engineers to be aware of the welfare of their women colleagues or employees. To create a better working environment, it is important to keep transparency in the industry, for example in terms of recruitment and pay structure. Evidence has shown that the gender pay gap can be decreased in a more transparent organisation [2].
3. It is crucial to keep the positive momentum when reaching gender equality in engineering. Official organisations such as the Women’s Engineering Society still play influential roles. It is more influential and effective when these organisations set up women engineer role models and make campaigns for engineering educations at school. As society now is different from what it was a hundred years ago, it is now essential to be diversified and involves all parties to reach this common goal of gender equality. Male engineers were able to speak up for women engineers' rights in the 1920s, the society is now ready to have more to join and share the burden of women engineers.