This is a puzzling subject that I chose to include
it in my book. When I was a high school student, I knew many girls that
excelled in math and science and therefore it was surprising to me that so few
elected to pursue engineering careers. After all, technical careers generally
don’t require brute strength, getting muddy or handling explosives. But with
all my work experience, I have only known 10 women in engineering or design
positions. I think I am finally beginning to understand why.
1.
Consulting-Specifying Engineer magazine
published that it is well established that only one-tenth of employed engineers
are women. I would have guessed less.
2.
A 2011 research study found that the percentage of
female engineering graduates accounted for approximately 18.4% of the BS
degrees awarded in total.
3.
A 2011 US Census Bureau publication concludes that
nearly 1 in 5 female science and engineering graduates leave the
technical labor force versus only 1 in 10 males. Many receiving BS in
engineering degrees then pursue non-engineering careers such as law, education,
health care and even accounting.
4.
In a recent study compiled at Harvey Mudd College in
California, the number one reason why young women do not chose technical
careers is that they think they are not interesting. The second reason, the
young women don’t think they would do well.
Back to my dilemma, so why have I known so few
women engineers? In addition to the above conclusions, I also recognize that
there has been more press in recent decades highlighting chemical, biomedical
and “save the environment” issues. Perhaps the front page stories constantly
focusing on these problems has motivated women to pursue these fields of study
thereby explaining the survey results.
One of the consequences of this scarcity of women
in engineering has created a great opportunity and a high demand for their
recruitment particularly companies advocating diversity in the work place. It
would seem that in the future, improvement in promoting technical careers for
women will be necessary.
Your thoughts?
