Trading Choices - Executive summary

Executive summary

The Ministry of Women’s Affairs commissioned this study as part of its plan to improve the economic independence of New Zealand women and to decrease gender segregation in the workforce, particularly in trades-related occupations. The research takes place at a time when policy makers from around the world are grappling with intensifying concerns about how policies and practices can best support young people’s career development alongside their nation’s economic and social well-being (Vaughan & Roberts, 2007, p. 92).

This study aimed to examine the interconnections between gender, gendered ideas, and careers decision making, with a particular focus on how and why young people navigate or avoid trades-related pathways. Our guiding questions were:

1. Do males and females experience the process of career decision making differently and/or inequitably?
2. If there are differences and/or inequities, where is the problem primarily located?
3. What policy – and other – levers could lead to a better gender balance in the trades, and/or an increase in women’s economic independence?

Since recent literature shows that career decision making is now a lifelong journey (not a point-in-time) and career identity is an ever-evolving social process(not a final destination), we sought to answer these questions via focus groups and interviews with young people who ranged in age from junior secondary students to fully qualified employees. We spoke to 86 young women and men who were: in trades-related pathways and/or enrolled in subjects/courses/apprenticeships/ occupations dominated by one sex (this could be their own sex or the other). Once our initial analysis was complete, we organised workshops designed to allow participants to give us feedback on this analysis. 

Our findings disrupt the New Zealand ‘pathways’ framework’s apparent promise of equal opportunities, limitless possibilities, and individual choices. We found that gender stereotypes and dominant hetero-normative discourse continue to have a major influence on young people as they imagine and try out possible selves. Interviewees’ narratives reveal how narrow thinking about – and production of – gender in three contexts (family, friends, and society; schooling; and the trades and trade training process) make some career paths and identities more – or less – accessible to young women. At the same time, the narratives of some of the young tradeswomen we interviewed disrupted – transcended even – gender-normative discourses to varying degrees.

It is not possible to provide an exact ‘recipe’ of factors that result in particular career decisions or gendered perceptions of occupations; but some of the factors that appear to open up nontraditional trades-related pathway options for some young women, include:

• families that consciously disrupt gender norming (and/or other socially prescribed notions of status and success) and that are interested/active in trades-related areas
• media and careers information that realistically presents (credible) individuals/characters in (realistic) nontraditional careers, in addition to further support for young people’s capacity to make sense of (and perhaps critique) media/information messages·        
• schooling that minimises an academic/vocational divide, and provides active support for girls to explore trades-related learning experiences (in ways that do not close off other options)
• trades training and work that legitimates women’s place in the field; challenges its conflation with dominant/hegemonic constructions of masculinity; and resists discrimination and double standards.

Our interviewees put forward a wide range of suggestions that could reduce gender segregation patterns in trades-related occupations, many of which we agree could possibly address some of the individual factors that appear to constrain young women’s choice trajectories. We suggest that some of the shortcomings could also be addressed via two ‘traditional’ strategies:

• improving the distribution, access, quality, and accuracy of information about the trades by marketing them to nontraditional audiences (females in particular)
• the creation of female-centred environments and approaches to (early) trades training.

However, in synthesising the interview evidence with current thinking about education and careers in the 21^st century, we argue that a more strategic approach might be to attend to the ‘bigger picture’ context in which these inter-related factors occur and are experienced, that is:

• acknowledging how ‘knowledge society’ developments and various ‘new’ ideas about career make many past approaches less useful
• rethinking trades-related occupations in the new context in ways that allow gender to be less of a constraint on young people’s decision making.

Theoretical and practical work that focuses on the knowledge society, a ‘new work order’, and New Zealand’s ‘culture of innovation’ signal that forging a career is becoming much more complex than it was in the past; employability and workforce development issues are superseding previous concerns about training/workforce participation; ‘old’ categories of skills and occupations are transforming into something more fluid and uncertain; and the shape of trades-related occupations may soon change along with the ways that women and men think about such occupations.

We suggest that rather than developing policies designed to ‘clean up’ the past, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (and other agencies) could develop approaches that focus on crafting a transformed future. This could build on and strengthen policy work and other interventions currently being developed or reworked, as well as acting as a ‘bridge’ between past-oriented and future-oriented approaches.

Specifically, we recommend maximising policy levers to:

• work with changes to skill sets needed in – and definitions of – trades by feeding into programmes that can meet current ‘skills shortages’ and future ‘dispositions’ needs, and provide bridges between the two (including treating the following kinds of ‘soft skills’ as integral to successful trades-related careers: financial; IT; customer service; people and relationship skills; problem solving and innovation; creativity; design; complex project management; and the ability to adapt to constant (and significant) change in methods, markets, and the overall operating environment)
• support initiatives across and within other agencies that assist young women and men in career decision making and meaning making (such as Secondary–Tertiary Alignment Resource, Gateway, Schools Plus, Creating Pathways and Building Lives, and Better Tertiary and Trade Training Decision Making).