Wanted: Female Engineers

If there is one educational background that offers job security, it is in engineering. Yet young people - and especially young women - hesitate to enter engineering education. So the demand for (female) engineers is always increasing.


27.06.2017

Shortage of engineers

In Belgium, as in the rest of the world, there is a severe shortage of engineers in the labour market. In addition, among engineers, women are strongly underrepresented. Because although women represent over half of graduates with a higher degree, only one in five engineers who graduated in our country in 2014 is a woman.

Just as strong technically

The assertion that women are less suited to technical professions and therefore don’t choose education in engineering is a misconception. Even more, the standard educational pattern that lies at the basis of that cliché could be the cause of the current shortage of female engineers. Fortunately we are – slowly but surely – seeing change in that area; today more than ever, women are welcome in typically male professions.

Woman offer added value

Work environments that are seen as ‘male’ benefit in fact from a healthy balance between men and women. Diversity in the workplace is conducive to a healthy work atmosphere in which there is room for innovation. And in engineering jobs in particular, innovation plays a very important role. Moreover, women score very well in general in the area of accuracy and communication skills, a golden combination for almost any engineering position.

Male work environment

In practice, however, there are still too few women who study engineering. Once they have graduated, many also choose a different job. Research in the US and Great Britain shows that the difficult balance between work and private life and the adaptation to a predominantly male work environment are a difficulty for them in particular. In other words, employers who commit themselves to flexible work and a healthy gender balance may be able to help ensure that more women will choose a job as an engineer in the future.

Sources: Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, the Guardian

 

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