INNOVATION May-June 2014

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GENDER BALANCE IN ENGINEERING Is This an Issue Worth Pursuing?

Katherina V. Tarnai-Lokhorst, P.Eng.

Tomorrow.” Some disciplines see higher percentages of women, such as environmental engineering and chemical engineering, and others lower percentages (see Charts 1 and 2). While this article looks primarily at engineering, it is also recognized as an issue for careers in geoscience. APEGBC recently voted to support an initiative that will ad- dress the issue by “setting up a task force [WIEGTF] with sufficient financial and staff resources to support and promote improving the number of women in engineering.” Which begs the question: Is this an appropriate use of resources and will a change in gender balance within engineering be beneficial to the profession?

Between 1996 and 2011, women comprised less than 10% of the population of Canadian students and graduates in mechanical engineering across all provinces. This percentage has not changed over the last half-decade, as APEGBC’s Women in Engineering and Geoscience Task Force (WIEGTF) found in the final report that it shared with Council last summer: Only 11% of professional engineers and geoscientists in BC are female. This is indicative of the broader issue that women are still under-represented in engineering and applied science: Women comprise less than 18% of the total population of professional engineers in Canada, according to Engineers Canada’s report, “Canadian Engineers for

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