The Women in STEM research team at UCD publish their findings on women’s experiences working in engineering.

The project, which began in 2023, is the first large-scale study of its kind in Ireland and aims to identify policies and practices to enable women to persist in the industry.

Hundreds of women took part both in our survey and focus groups and we would like to sincerely thank all of our participants for making these findings as meaningful as they are.

This article considers the project’s survey findings on factors influencing whether women leave; consider leaving; or persist in engineering in Ireland; and concludes with a series of related industry recommendations¹. 

Survey findings

Participants: Our findings represent responses from 370 participants, 311 of whom were still working as engineers and 59 who had left the industry. Importantly, the 311 women still working in engineering were asked whether they had ever considered leaving the profession.

We found that 149 women or 48%, said they had considered leaving while 162, or 52%, said they had never considered leaving. This was our first important finding, and it suggested the need to dig further into the experiences of the sub-group 'women who consider leaving'.

We wanted to understand how their experiences differed from women who never considered leaving and, perhaps, how they aligned more closely with women who left. As such, the following comparative groups were created:

Women who Left 59 + women who Considered Leaving 149 = 208 (L/CL) Vs Women who Never Considered Leaving = 162 (NCL)

Research question: Which factors influence whether a woman leaves/considers leaving or persists in an engineering career in Ireland?

Results: Our results are divided into three sections: Workplace Issues; Employment Conditions; and, Demographics. Each section will demonstrate how these different aspects of work and life influence whether respondents leave or persist.

Demographics

• 63% of those in a relationship were women who left/considered leaving (L/CL);
• 63% of those with children also fell into the L/CL group;
• Among those who were single, 55% had never considered leaving (NCL).

These results tell us that demographics play a role in determining women’s decision to persist, but how so? We know from research elsewhere that women do not leave engineering to ‘become full-time wives and mothers’, and the same is true for our respondents².

When we looked at the career moves of the 59 respondents who left engineering, almost 80% had moved to new careers while only 12% left the workforce entirely to take care of family.

What is it about an engineering career specifically that may not be conducive to raising a family? In terms of the role of relationships, and in the current context of the cost-of-living crisis, our results might suggest that changing careers is only a possibility for those in a dual income household.

Employment conditions

To understand the relationship between leaving or persisting in engineering and women’s conditions of employment, we examined four factors: years worked; company size; weekly hours; and gender make-up of colleagues.

Years worked

A total of 70% of those who worked more than 30 years never considered leaving. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, this tells us that the likelihood a woman will leave/consider leaving declines the longer she works in the industry. Instead, the key period to focus on in terms of improving retention is during female employees’ first 20 years in the industry as 60% had left/considered leaving.

Company size

Among those who worked in companies with less than 50 employees, 80% were in the L/CL group. Women who left/considered leaving also made up the majority, 59%, of those who worked in companies with 5,000+ employees.

Mid-size companies were where women appeared most content as 55% of those working in companies with 500-5000 employees had never considered leaving, raising the question: what are mid-size companies getting right?

Weekly hours

We found that as weekly working hours increased, a higher percentage had left/considered leaving. For example, for those who worked less than 25 hours per week, only 25% had left/considered leaving, while those who worked 50+ hours per week, 75% had left/considered leaving.

And, we found, in terms of satisfaction with working hours that for those who stated they were dissatisfied with working hours, 94% had left/considered leaving. A key area of intervention for companies seeking to reduce attrition may be to investigate how to solve dissatisfaction with working hours.

Gender make-up of colleagues

A total of 84% of respondents work with mostly/all male colleagues. Testing for respondents’ satisfaction with the gender make-up of colleagues we found that the majority of those satisfied, 56%, were women who had never considered leaving.

By contrast, among those who were dissatisfied, 61% had considered leaving. To relieve a sense of isolation, can companies better support female employees to engage in organisations like the Women in Engineering group?

Workplace Issues

The following workplace issues were presented in the survey as multiple choice. The issues were selected based on literature on female retention in engineering in other contexts, largely US or UK based research³. These issues were found to be leading causes of women leaving engineering in other countries, and we wanted to test for their relevance in Ireland. Our findings show that for those who experienced each issue, the majority were women who left/considered leaving:

I experienced the issue of…

• General dissatisfaction in career choice, engineering was not as I expected: 98% L/CL and 2% NCL;
• I no longer identify as an engineer, I no longer feel committed to the profession: 93% L/CL and 7% NCL;
• My contributions were overlooked by management: 76% L/CL and 24% NCL;
• I experienced isolation or sexism by colleagues and clients: 73% L/CL and 27% NCL;
• Managers are not supportive of work-life balance: 71% L/CL and 29% NCL;
• I need/want to spend more time at home/with children: 70% L/CL and 30% NCL;
• I had to change or adapt who I was to fit in at work: 67% L/CL and 33% NCL;
• I lack confidence in my ability to accomplish tasks:  66% L/CL and 34% NCL.

Importantly, we also found that women in the left/considered group had experienced, on average, twice as many issues as women who had never considered leaving.

The takeaway here is that it is unlikely there is one singular issue or factor driving women to leave the industry. Certainly, in our focus groups with women who left the field completely, we found their reasons for doing so were varied, often personal or circumstantial.

For example, the recession or decision to emigrate played a role in some of our participants' reasons for leaving, others simply had the desire to move sectors, into a creative field, or into a different position in the public sector.

Nonetheless, our findings show that an accumulation of certain issues may lead women to consider leaving. The suggestion here, for those working in management or HR, is that if you notice any one of the above issues is a pressing concern for your employee then it is worth working with them to help overcome it. While one issue might not directly cause an employee to leave, it could build up over time, snowballing with other issues, leading into that desire to leave.

Sexism in engineering

A separate question on the issue of sexism was presented to survey respondents⁴. We found that roughly 80% of all respondents experienced and/or witnessed sexism in their engineering workplace.

A comparable global survey of women working in the tech sector found 51% had experienced sexism indicating sexism is an issue of significant scale for the Irish engineering industry. We also found that in terms of reporting sexism, a mere 21% reported it to management, while 79% either told nobody or shared it with friends/family instead.

Industry action recommendations

Considering each workplace issue, we identified several recommendations for industry leaders with the aim of improving retention of female engineering employees:

Engineering Identity and Career Dissatisfaction

• Career expectations – working with universities during programmes to provide students with realistic expectations, providing greater opportunities for engagement/placements during programmes;  
• Female support networks within companies for those working as engineers or supporting women’s participation in external groups such as Engineer’s Ireland Women in Engineering Group.

Overlooked, Isolated and Unsupported

• Challenging sexism in the workplace, proactive engagement of men in EDI;
• Consider how managers should be trained to ensure that supervisors/managers are supportive and value contributions of female employees.

Children, confidence and Changing Self

• Work-life balance – but consider this in the context of all employees, and the importance of this;
• Assess the culture in the workplace and switch the focus from 'fixing women' to 'fixing the environment and culture'.

Sexism: Frequency and reporting mechanisms

• Appropriate processes in place for reporting sexism, bystander training and responses to reports of sexism.

Project team members: Dr Deirdre Brennan, Newman Fellow on Women in STEM, University College Dublin. Prof Aoife Ahern, dean of Engineering, college principal, College of Engineering and Architecture, vice president for equality, diversity and inclusion, University College Dublin. Assoc Prof Aideen Quilty, associate professor and head of School, School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, University College Dublin. 

References

1. A full academic article on the survey results presented here will be published in a forthcoming edition of the Engineering Studies journal. 
2. Hewlett, Sylvia Ann et al. "The Athena factor: Reversing the brain drain in science, engineering, and technology." Harvard Business Review Research Report (2008) 
3. See for example, Cech, Erin, Brian Rubineau, Susan Silbey, and Caroll Seron. "Professional role confidence and gendered persistence in engineering." American sociological review 76, no. 5 (2011): 641-666. Also, Buse, Kathleen, Diana Bilimoria, and Sheri Perelli. "Why they stay: Women persisting in US engineering careers." Career Development International 18, no. 2 (2013): 139-154. And see, Fouad, Nadya A., Romila Singh, Kevin Cappaert, Wen-hsin Chang, and Min Wan. "Comparison of women engineers who persist in or depart from engineering." Journal of Vocational Behavior 92 (2016): 79-93. And, 
4. The following definition of sexism was provided in the survey: we consider sexism across a wide spectrum of discriminatory experiences including everyday/casual interactions, for example clients assuming you are not an engineer/in a senior role, or comments made by colleagues about female stereotypes, harassment and unwanted sexual behaviour/language/imagery/jokes/gestures etc.