Abstract
For the past decades, the presence of women engineers in senior positions at the workplaces has been very low despite the strides made to encourage and promote equity, fair labour practices, and non-discrimination in workplaces. The engineering industry continues to overlook women despite women engineers acquiring impressive academic qualifications, a plethora of skills and knowledge and the ambition to advance their careers. Using data from a survey of 74 engineers working in the engineering sector in South Africa, this study’s aim is to determine the existence of gender schemas in South African engineering organisations and how these gender schemas affect the advancement of women engineers’ careers. A survey was conducted using structured questionnaires which were administered to the engineering professionals through emails and hard copies. A total of 74 responses were received from the participants. The reliability of the measurement instrument was determined using Cronbach’s coefficient alpha while construct validity was used to determine the extent to which the scores on a measurement instrument reflect the desired construct. Statistical techniques and tools were used to analyse the data and to also determine the possible correlational relationship between gender schemas and women advancement. Chi-square tests were done to determine whether there is an association between gender stereotypes and the advancement of women in the engineering industry. Logistic regression was performed to model promotions based on gender stereotypes (dependent variable) and other independent variables that are found to be associated with promotions based on gender stereotypes. Findings suggest that the promotion of women engineers are more likely to be affected by gender stereotypes in organisations. Results also showed that there is an association between promotions based on gender stereotypes and (i) the existence of gender...
M.Com. (Business Management)