The Gender Lens
Equity & Inclusion
Diversity
By the Numbers: Women in Male-Dominated Fields, Globally
There’s good news, bad news, and the status quo about women in male-dominated fields around the world. Male-dominated fields are anything from engineering, manufacturing, automotive, construction, etc.
First, the good news:
Women’s employment grew over 5% globally in industries consisting of two-thirds of men. While that number may seem small, it shows a slight upward trend that is expected to continue.
In the United States, 6.5% of women worked full-time in male-dominated industries by the end of 2020. What’s changing? Female Millennials in the US are less segregated by gender in occupations than previous generations.
Australian women’s employment in civil engineering and software programming has grown steadily over the past decade, outpacing men in that sector.
The bad news:
Despite growth in information and communication technologies, women’s share of jobs in that sector declined in the EU to only 18%.
Emerging jobs already show gender gaps globally, especially in fields like AI and data (32% women globally) or cloud computing (14% women globally).
The status quo:
The pay gap: In the United States, male-dominated occupations (engineering, manufacturing, etc.) pay more than female-dominated occupations (education, nursing, etc.).
Globally, women entering university to pursue an education in male-dominated fields experience higher levels of harassment than women studying in gender-equivalent areas. That trend carries over once they’re hired in fields where they’re the slim minority.
*Data exclusively provided by Catalyst.org.