Towards a More Gender Balanced Job World: Exploring the Perspectives of Recruiters and Job Applicants about the Attractiveness of Occupations for Male and Female Professionals

Marlene Amorim, Fatemeh Saghezchi, Cláudia Sousa Silva, Marta Ferreira Dias, Mário Jorge Ferreira Rodrigues, Carolina PAN and Lorena BASTOS

Abstract:

Many occupations are still marked by an unbalanced presence of one of the genders. In the minds of both recruiters and applicants, the association of a given gender to some professions is still very common, therefore limiting the attractiveness upfront for many applicants. According to recent data from the European Union, the difference between the proportion of men and women can be quite substantial, reaching, in some cases 80%. For occupations such as personal care workers, the women still represent 89% of the workforce, whereas in others, like science and engineering professions, the scenario is the opposite, with men holding about 75% of the places. This study presents the results of a survey that addressed professionals and job recruiters about the existing unconscious gender bias in their recruitment processes. The study builds on the ongoing work of the European project “Overcoming Gender Bias in Career Opportunities,” involving six European countries. The study discusses differences in the perceptions about the attractiveness of different jobs from the perspective of both recruiters and job applicants, and explores the differences observed across the six countries where the study was applied: Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, Greece, Poland, and Germany. The results from our 307 collected answers suggest that, overall, the occupations that have been dominated by male professionals are still largely perceived as more appealing to men, and the same seems to hold true for occupational areas where female professionals are traditionally the majority. Despite that, there are some occupations where signs of change are starting to merge, such as for science professionals that are increasingly attractive to both genders. The study, therefore, supports that we are on the verge of observing important changes in the distribution of men and women across several professional fields, suggesting that managers will need to devote efforts to adjusting the workplaces to meet the needs of a more diversified workforce in these sectors.