Many years ago, gender gaps in Europe’s labour market were prevalent. But with more and more organisations supporting gender equality, more women are now becoming active participants in various sectors in Europe’s labour market. Studies show that diverse organisations often perform better. Furthermore, it was found that for every 1% increase of gender diversity in the workplace, there is a 3% increase in the company revenue.
Here are some industries to consider for women looking to start their careers.
1. Electronics Engineering
Women working in the electronics engineering field make important contributions to society, yet they remain underrepresented. As per the National Centre for Science and Engineering Statistics, over half of the college-educated workforce are women, but only 16% are engineers. Further studies show that more than 30% of women have left their degrees in engineering, and female engineers are earning less than 10% compared to male engineers.
Several efforts have been made to combat these issues, and there is now increasing gender diversity and representation helped by socially conscious electronics engineering recruitment agencies. Women interested in becoming engineers can take up advanced education, such as a Master of Science in Electronics Engineering, to further develop their knowledge and skills, overcome hurdles of gender equality, and build rewarding careers in this field.
Nowadays, many companies are making concerted efforts to improve gender diversity in electrical engineering by recruiting more women and opening several opportunities for women. As stated by Woman Engineer Magazine, some of the top corporations that employ more women engineers are Google, Microsoft, and 3M.
2. Transportation
Women are underrepresented in the transport industry, with only 20% of females are in the workforce. Despite the increasing awareness of diversity and inclusion, there’s still so much to do. The representation of women in the sector remains low and has even decreased in recent years.
Unfortunately, diversity and inclusion are among those areas that have been immediately affected by the cutbacks resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. There’s also growing evidence and data on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on gender balance. Although women face many challenges, the pandemic has opened up more opportunities for women in the transport sector, which is necessary for economic recovery.
Recently, organisations and government entities have made transport policy more responsive to the needs of women, which requires a more structured approach to understanding their needs. It also requires that women should be represented in every sector. Together with UN Women, the World Bank has prepared a self-paced e-learning course regarding Gender Equality in Transportation. It offers an understanding of issues that make the transportation sector “gender-blind” and unable to consider the needs of a diverse range of users, particularly women. The course also looks at the challenges women are dealing with when getting jobs and climbing the career ladder, especially in the transport industry, which is a male-dominated sector.
3. Veterinary Industry
The gender balance in the veterinary profession has dramatically changed in the past few years. Women now account for about 60% of all practising vets. This figure is likely to increase considering that about 80% of students enrolled in the veterinary course are female.
The increasing number of women in veterinary practice started in the 1920s. However, by the 1960s, women still accounted for less than 5% of the profession. Several organisations have been promoting women’s interests in the field of veterinary. However, around the 1990s, the number of women in the veterinary practice has increased so much, and they find it unnecessary to promote gender equality in the industry.
There are many reasons why there’s an increasing number of women entering the veterinary field. One theory speculates that females are more willing to get a lower salary compared to men, and most men would prefer to work in other sectors of the medical field, such as surgery or human medicine. This pushes some female vets in finding locum vet jobs over permanent contracts. As per the Veterinary Medical Association, female vets have historically been receiving $2,406.97 less than male vets. But statistics also show that there are more female applicants in all professional universities, not just in veterinary, such as in pharmacy, law school, and dentistry.
In 2019, the number of active vet workforce was around 116,00 and 63% of these were female. From this, it’s easy to see that veterinary is a profession that is now mainly made of females. Industry experts also believe that this will remain so in the next few decades.
4. Local Government
Only 26.1% of women in the 35,500 parliament seats across 156 countries and about 22.6% in over 3,400 ministers worldwide. But having more women in politics is essential to achieving Sustainable Development Goals. Furthermore, gender diversity in the local government can lead to less risky and better decision making. In fact, some experts believe that a financial crisis could have been avoided if there were more women on boards.
Despite a record number of women getting into politics recently, such as Teresa May, who has recently been elected Prime Minister of the UK, the world still needs to embrace gender equality within politics even more. People should look to countries with greater gender parity, such as Rwanda, where women make up 38.5% of the upper house and 61.3% of the lower house. In 2003, the country approved a new constitution reserving 30% of the parliamentary seats for women. Meanwhile, France is one of those countries that have also imposed statutory quotas for women. However, such quotas may be unnecessary.
Seven of the top ten countries with more female representation have political parties that voluntarily implemented their own rules. Around the world, more than a hundred political parties in more than fifty countries have voluntary measures put in place to increase the number of women running for political positions. But, whether legislated or not, implementing statutory quotas can be controversial. Others claim that they are undemocratic. For some people, a better approach is to focus on eliminating the interconnected barriers that women are faced with when getting nominated for elected office and giving them more opportunities to conduct successful campaigns.