Does Engineering Still Have a Glass Ceiling?

I see no gender bias where I work (at least from my male point of view).

The OP mentions the balance of work and family life. I think that is the primary reason there are more males than females. Traditionally, raising a family requires more (time and energy) of the mother than the father. As time goes on the demands of the office require late hours, time away from home which are sacrifices that most mothers I know are not willing to make.

Industry rewards those making the sacrifice. I see nothing wrong with this model. If a woman is willing to make the same personal sacrifice a man does then she should, and is in my experience, rewarded accordingly.

The company I work for has approx 500 employees, essentially the same number as 1985. Many years ago (25+) the company I work for had few women at a high level positions. Today, there are 4 times as many. All of them are childless and at least one has never been married either. In addition to those high level positions, females are equally represented one tier down from upper management.

I gave you a Good Answer for including the observation that, in most cases where there is a glass ceiling, it is not due to gender but due to a difference in the level of commitment to extracurricular work requirements. Just because women are more likely to be reluctant to make the sacrifices that you describe doesn't mean that the consequential reduced rewards are gender-based. I am a female and a senior engineer in a supervisory position in a mid-size consulting firm. I realize that to go much higher in the company, or to start my own smaller company, would take much more commitment to work outside of normal work hours than I am willing to make - this barrier is not because of my gender!

Thanks for the insightful comments!

I think it depends on the type of the people in employed in the company.

I am a woman, in my mid-30s, and a civil engineer. At my last firm, I was the only female engineer on staff and did not notice any difference in the way I was treated (or promoted) in relation to my male coworkers. I was the fastest employee to "graduate" from the firm's professional engineer development program and served on more internal project teams than any other employee at my level. Then the economy crashed, and 80% of the non-managerial employees were laid off, myself included. (Total employees = 70 at the peak; median age = 40 yrs)

Fortunately, I found a new job. At my new firm, I am not the only female engineer, but I am the only one in my department. There is definite sexism here. After 9 months, there are many older men who won't communicate with me about my projects, even though I am the Project Lead - they will only speak with my male boss - thus impeding my ability to do my job. I've been complimented many times on how nice my shoes look, but never on how effective my task completion was. If I don't have cash on me, they joke that my husband must not trust me with cash. I'm asked on a WEEKLY BASIS if I'm ready for kids and how I'm going to handle taking several months off for it. (I'm not pregnant, nor do I have plans to become so soon.) I get talked over in meetings, and when I confront the offender about it, they roll their eyes. (Total employees in my department = about 80; median age = 50 yrs)

It certainly affects both my effectiveness and job satisfaction. While my direct supervisor is fantastic, promotion is based on project success and effective interation with members throughout the company. I haven't found an effective strategy for handling this yet... We shall see.

Women have their glass ceiling, but how about those of us engineers who didn't buy a four year degree, and instead apprenticed their way - talk about a ceiling! It seems as though the generations of engineers who were bred after WWII have been taught to have little respect for the people who have learned engineering outside the classroom.

I can only comment regarding the 2 companies I have worked for in the last 20 years. In those 2, there is clearly a gender bias, but it is distinctly in favor of females. In one case it is needed to get government contracts, the other is just a Fortune 50 company policy. The Fortune 50 company (A----), has gone to exceptional lengths to retain females that would have been fired if they were male and had a similar track record. Others there are promoted beyond their abilty. I have not seen this survey, but I find that many of the surveys finding gender bias do not account for things such as more years of experience for males. I have no recent experience with acedemia to comment on it. I believe that in smaller companies, there is less policy control and negative female gender bias is more likely.

Barriers based on gender are practically gone, but they do persist in some obscure areas. However, there are also incentives for hiring women, and these outnumber the barriers.

In any industry where there is a gender imbalance, this tends to become exaggerated as you rise up the management chain.

The reason is that as senior management look to fill positions they favor people who have experience in this area at this or a similar level.

The gender imbalance means there are more of the predominant sex available to qualify for the position so the odds favor the perpetuation of the imbalance.

This applies when promotion is on merit.

Look at the gender distribution of senior management positions in engineering (male dominated), nursing (female dominated), librarians (female dominated) and compare them to the general gender balance in those same industries and you will find similar balances, except, because of the available selection pool, the differences tend to become exaggerated as you go higher up the tree.

Basically there is unlikely to be major gender discrimination. If an organization discriminates, they are reducing the available pool of suitable applicants, reducing their potential management competence and hence competitiveness.