The Gender Lens Equity & Inclusion Diversity

By the Numbers: Women in Male-Dominated Fields, Globally

Uplevyl Studios

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.