Why do technically educated women leave engineering? Report of an exploratory study by Windesheim.
Summary
Technically trained women leave engineering more often than technically trained men. Why is this, and how can it be prevented? The lectorate Social Innovation of Windesheim University of Applied Sciences has started a project to answer these questions. By doing so, we want to contribute to limiting personnel shortages in the technical sector and also give more technical companies the opportunity to benefit from the added value of diversity: better business results, more flexibility, creativity and innovativeness, more customer focus and customer satisfaction, and greater appeal to top talent. In this report, we report on an initial exploratory study.
What are the reasons why women who initially loved engineering and completed engineering studies still leave engineering, why don't they go or stay in it?
The preliminary research consists of a literature review of what is already known about our research topic and a limited number of exploratory interviews with technically educated women about their career choices and with HR policy managers in technical companies about their experience with women in technical positions. Based on this, we outline an initial overview of factors that may influence women's choice of careers in or outside engineering.
Research
You can find the report of the research here.
