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Investigating the Status of Women Engineers in Education and Employment during the COVID-19 Pandemic

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  • Seema Singh

    (Department of Humanities, Delhi Technological University, Delhi 110042, India)

Abstract

Engineering is traditionally considered a male domain with lower female participation despite various affirmative actions taken in recent decades. There is evidence of greater gender equality as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and precautionary lockdown measures. With this in mind, this paper investigates whether women engineers in India were more adversely affected than their male counterparts by the COVID-19 pandemic. Such an impact may be explained by ‘intersectional stigma’, expanded upon in the literature on discrimination. The impact of such stigma varies in different countries based on socio-cultural factors. Through the use of ethnographic and statistical research methods on secondary and primary data from a sample of 384 engineers, this paper shows that the impact of COVID-19 is not significantly different between genders in engineering education and employment. This may be due to the high demand for digital engineering skills, and strong family support in Indian society. Engineering branch may play a relatively more important role than gender in terms of impact. This finding has repercussions for continuing engineering education (CEE) programs and regulatory bodies in India in terms of enhancing course content and the results may be used in developing affirmative programs in other regions.

Suggested Citation

  • Seema Singh, 2022. "Investigating the Status of Women Engineers in Education and Employment during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-14, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jchals:v:13:y:2022:i:1:p:27-:d:839896
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Giuliana Viglione, 2020. "Are women publishing less during the pandemic? Here’s what the data say," Nature, Nature, vol. 581(7809), pages 365-366, May.
    2. Philipa Birago Akuoko & Vincent Aggrey & Jennifer Dokbila Mengba, 2021. "Mothering with a career during a pandemic; the case of the Ghanaian woman," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(S2), pages 277-288, July.
    3. Alakh N. Sharma, 2022. "Youth Employment and Unemployment in India: Issues and Challenges," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 65(2), pages 237-267, June.
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    Cited by:

    1. Satu Kalliola & Tuula Heiskanen, 2022. "Challenges in Work and Employment during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-5, November.

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