Women engineers then and now

Job opportunities for women have been slender throughout the modem era. The UK isn´t alone in having a very small proportion of women in the engineering workforce. Other English speaking countries are almost as bad. Recent statistics show Australia with 9.6 per cent, and the USA and Canada both on 11 per cent. Ireland manages 14.3 per cent. Things are a lot better in some other parts of the EU. Statistics from 2007 give top marks to Latvia, where 30 per cent of engineers are female, closely followed by Bulgaria on 29.3 per cent, Cyprus on 28.6 per cent and Sweden on 25.9 per cent. Interestingly, in modern China women engineers make up 40 per cent of the workforce, whereas in the former USSR the proportion was 58 per cent: more female engineers than male!