Engineering: issues, challenges and opportunities for development ...

ENGINEERING: ISSUES CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEVELOPMENTFigure 3: Total number of women members of Engineers Australia (1980–March 2008)MembershipTotal Number of Women Percentage of Member Category (%)Grade1980 1990 2000 2003 2005 2008 1980 1990 2000 2003 2005 2008Fellow 0 4 39 46 60 74 0 0.14 0.5 0.89 1.13 1.40Member 46 263 496 938 1192 1613 0.3 0.9 1.8 2.94 3.73 4.78Graduate 41 346 1741 2138 1768 1919 0.6 3.7 9.5 10.75 11.92 13.55Student 14 467 1295 3904 4318 4760 1.4 8.2 15.0 16.83 16.00 15.72Total 87 613 2276 3122 3020 3606 N/A N/A 4.0 5.48 5.79 6.78Source: Engineers Australia Membership Statistics to March 2008, unpublishedwomen compared to 15 per cent of men earned more thanAU$121,000. 74Women engineers face significant barriers in comparison toother professional women in terms of an often unsupportiveworkplace culture. Two surveys conducted by the NationalCommittee for Women in Engineering in Australia indicatethat discrimination, bullying and harassment are common,although the incidence has reduced since the first survey(CREW Survey, 2002, 75 CREW Revisited). 76 The basis of discriminationreported was overwhelmingly gender, which wasreported across all age groups but particularly by women engineersless than forty years of age. It is encouraging to note thatemployers have recognized the need to address work practicesto modify these behaviours, just as considerable work has74 Mills, J., Mehrtens, V., Smith, E. and Adams, V, CREW Revisited in 2007. The Year ofWomen in Engineering, Engineers Australia, April 2008, http://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/wie (Accessed: 16 May 2010).75 Counting the losses: Career Review of Engineering Women (CREW) Report, EngineersAustralia, 2002, http://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/wie (Accessed: 16 May 2010).76 Mills, J., Mehrtens, V., Smith, E. and Adams, V, CREW Revisited in 2007. The Year ofWomen in Engineering, Engineers Australia, April 2008, http://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/wie (Accessed: 16 May 2010).Figure 4: Percentage of women without children by professional disciplineOtherPharmacyBusinessScienceInformationTechnologyEngineeringSource: APESMA Survey 2007 (see note 76).47.6%48.4%49.3%54.0%60.2%67.1%been done to achieve safe work practices in the past decade.The current survey shows that some engineering organizationsnow provide training in equity and diversity management fortheir employees and have developed equity and diversitypolicies and organizational practices to assess their equity performancethat set targets for improvement.Responsibilities for children are also a significant issue forwomen engineers, where 78.1 per cent of respondents to theCREW 2007 survey were not responsible for dependent children.77 The survey also reported that 67.1 per cent of womenengineering respondents did not have children, as shown inFigure 4. Both these results are significantly above the rate of24 per cent of all women estimated by the Australian Bureauof Statistics to remain childless (in 2002), reflecting the relativelyyoung age of women engineers and also the tendency ofwomen to leave once they have families.However this is beginning to be redressed in the Australianengineering profession. It is encouraging that the most significantresult of the 2007 survey is the increased availability offamily-friendly workplaces as shown in Figure 5.Family-friendly practices are intended to assist employees tobalance work and family commitments and consequentlyenhance their productivity. As women are still more frequentlythe primary care-givers for children, family-friendly practicesshould assist their retention and career progression. Engineeringfirms have recognized the messages about family-friendlyworkplace practices being critically important to attract andretain engineers and have put appropriate policies into place.Some 79 per cent of women respondents indicated that flexiblework hours were available. Women respondents also indicatedthat paid maternity leave (72 per cent), leave withoutpay (91 per cent) and carer’s leave (79 per cent) was availablein a large majority of firms.77 Mills, J., Mehrtens, V., Smith, E. and Adams, V, CREW Revisited in 2007. The Year ofWomen in Engineering, Engineers Australia, April 2008, http://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/wie (Accessed: 16 May 2010).202