Womenomics

Few young women enter the trades where there are good career opportunities and it is possible to earn-while-you-learn.

Many jobs remain dominated by either men or women. While 99 percent of all plumbers, builders, and mechanics are men, over 90 percent of people working as caregivers, registered nurses, and secretaries are women. Male-dominated jobs tend to be higher paid than female-dominated jobs.

MWA commissioned research in 2008 on the factors that influence young people when they are deciding on a career and in particular, why so few young women enter the trades. The report Trading Choices: young people’s career decisions and gender segregation in the trades is available on the website: http://www.mwa.govt.nz/news-and-pubs/publications/trading-choices.

The overall objective of their women in trades work is to figure out how to promote the trades as a career option and remove barriers to women in trade training. They are looking across the trades where women are under-represented, and at emerging industries to see how they might prevent occupational segregation from repeating the patterns of history.