Careers Professionals and Employers

Anecdotal evidence suggests that young women are put off non-traditional work choices partly because they lack any hands-on experience of what the work involves. Exposure to different types of skills and work is potentially a key component of reducing job segregation.

The introduction of greater vocationalism into the curriculum for 14-19 year olds raises some new issues and challenges in reducing job segregation.

The current school experience of young people is already creating stereotyped choices and job segregation; greater choice at 14 and entry onto vocational routeways into work can compound gender gaps unless additional targeted work is done to improve the quality of advice and guidance to young people.

Why has encouraging girls and women to take up ‘non traditional’ careers become more than an equal opportunities issue?

• Employers are experiencing severe skill shortages in the engineering and are having to recruit a more diverse workforce.
• It is also becoming more widely recognised that occupations are segregated by gender Almost 30 years after the Sex Discrimination Act, occupational segregation continues to be one of the main causes of the gender pay gap and a major barrier to equality.
• Women are also forming an increasing proportion of the total workforce. (‘Women will contribute to 80% of the growth in the labour force by the year 2006’ The Rising Tide, 1994)
• It makes business sense that employers recruit from the whole of the labour force not just 50% of it. By ignoring women, employers are missing out on untapped potential.
• A more diverse workforce can contribute to a healthy workplace culture. The skills that women can often bring, such as communication and negotiation skills, cooperation rather than competition, are skills which the industries are saying they need.

Please refer to the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET and the JIVE websites for further information, government reports and statistics.

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