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Young women are employed in a narrow range of occupations. For example, young women, aged 16 to 34, are only 1% of automobile mechanics, 4% of airline pilots and navigators and 10% of electronic technicians compared to young men in the same age category.
About half of young women (aged 16 - 24 years) work in jobs that pay an average wage of $338 per week while 60% of young men work in jobs that pay an average wage of $448 per week. This $110 per week wage differential is linked to the different occupations in which women and men are employed.
Women employed in nontraditional jobs earn higher wages than women employed in traditionally female occupations. Nontraditional employment for women is defined as occupations or fields of work where women comprise less than 25% of the individuals employed.
SCHOOL-BASED LEARNING
Outreach To Female Students. Programs have shown that women are interested in nontraditional occupations when they are actively recruited. Recruitment techniques include: presentations by female role models and current female students in trades, technology and science (TTS) occupations; recruitment flyers with photographs of women and their testimonials; a hands-on career laboratory targeted towards women; information about salaries and career ladders.
Effective outreach strategies send the message that women can do TTS jobs, that they will be welcome in school and work-based learning settings and that they will have some female company.
Career Information & Advising. It is important that career information shows women in a wide variety of trades, technology and science occupations. Some education and career information companies have developed a series of products that portray women in a cross section of nontraditional occupations. Job shadowing of a female role model is especially effective in communicating to women that they can succeed in traditionally male fields.
Career interest inventories are most useful when administered after career exploration. Most women do not picture themselves in trades, technology and science occupations and will need exposure to career exploration activities with female role models for their interest to be stimulated. Career aptitude and assessment tools should be used with great caution: many have the effect of screening girls and women out of trades, technology and science, occupations.
Math And Science Education. The achievement of girls in math and science courses declines as their grade level increases. Contextual and experiential learning from the early grade school levels improves math and science attainment for both girls and boys and has been shown to be highly effective in keeping girls in the math and science pipeline.
Math and science courses in the elementary and middle school years are the critical building blocks for upper level math and science classes, school-to-work career clusters in trades, technology and science and post secondary math and science education.
CONNECTING ACTIVITIES
Partnerships: Linking With Out-Of-School Programs. Schools can form partnerships with the many out-of-school programs which promote math and science education and careers for young women. Sponsors include girls' clubs, universities, and professional associations of women in math and science. Most charge no fees or tuition. One example is Operation SMART (Science, Math and Relevant Technology) started by Girls, Inc. to encourage girls to persist in math and science in school and stay on the track to good careers.
Survival Skills. Young women are most likely to succeed in nontraditional occupations when they are prepared for the cultural challenges they will face in traditionally male-dominated fields and have developed successful coping skills for the isolation and discrimination they will likely encounter. Components of survival skills workshops include:
- Developing allies and mentors for support
- Accessing women's support groups and associations
- Techniques for responding to peer teasing
- Diffusing verbal/physical harassment
- Legal rights and consequences
Survival skills workshops also benefit men by expanding their awareness about problems women face in the workplace.
Women Mentors. Schools and job training programs will want to identify women mentors in TTS occupations for both school and work-based mentoring of females. Women in nontraditional career tracks will greatly benefit from at least one woman mentor who can advise them on such issues as establishing credibility on an all male work site.
Women Mentors can be identified through national women's professional associations such as the Association for Women in Science, the National Network of Minority Women in Science and Women in the Fire Service, as well as the female membership of professional associations.
Training For Teachers and Counselors. Teaching techniques for overcoming the learning patterns girls and boys often fall into in the classroom which impede the education of the girls are highly effective in increasing girl's participation and attainment in math and science classes -- such as structured groupings which prevent girls from only serving as the recorder in lab experiments. Training on how to present nontraditional career options to women and sex discrimination and harassment is important for both counselors and teachers. See our WomenTech Training for more information.
Parent Involvement. Parents can learn strategies that will support their daughters' achievement in math and science education and their pursuit of career clusters in TTS. Examples include enrolling their daughters' in out-of-school math and science programs and encouraging their daughters' use of computers.
WORK-BASED LEARNING
Preparing Employers & Unions. School-to-work programs that educate young women for TTS career tracks will want to ensure that employers and unions will support them and are prepared to successfully receive them in the workplace. Information to prepare employers and unions may include:
- Assessing students for work-based learning assignments
- Preparing the workplace for women
- Preventing isolation and paternalistic treatment
- Providing appropriate bathroom and changing facilities
- Preventing sexual harassment
INSTITUTIONAL STRATEGIES
- Include women in TTS occupations and their representatives on state, regional and local advisory councils. Hire women instructors in TTS educational areas.
- Include workshops on nontraditional employment in Training Institutes. Grant incentives in Requests For Proposals for nontraditional employment and rewards for demonstrating excellence in equity.
- Purchase textbooks, videotapes and posters that portray women in nontraditional occupations.
- Collect data that links occupation and gender. Designate nontraditional occupations. Develop performance measures for nontraditional employment.
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