Poorer prospects for young women in the search for a training place

In Germany, occupational activities and the labour market continue to be shaped in strong gender-specific terms. Although young women perform better at school and achieve higher school leaving qualifications, the search for a company-based training place is harder for them than it is for young men. The essential reason for this is that young women concentrate on a very narrow spectrum of occupations when making their career choice. They are primarily interested in commercial and service sector occupations and rarely consider private sector technical occupations. By way of contrast, the career choice spectrum of young men is much wider. Although they display a strong tendency towards private sector technical occupations, they are also relatively likely to be interested in other occupations.

The results of an analysis carried out by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) on the basis of the BA/BIBB Applicant Survey show that the differing chances that young men and young women have of securing a company-based training place can be traced back to differences in career wishes. The BA/BIBB Applicant Survey was a representative sampling of 4,100 young people and young adults who were registered as training place applicants with the Federal Employment Agency (BA) in the 2012 placement year.

Women are traditionally less strongly represented than men in company-based VET. In 2013, they made up 39% of trainees. This is mainly linked to the fact that private sector technical occupations continue to play a significant role in the dual system of vocational education and training. For this reason, women also tend to aspire to the school-based VET system, in which service occupations predominate. The BIBB analysis, however, only includes young men and women who were seeking a training place within the dual system and who were receiving support from the BA in this regard.

A consideration of which occupations male and female applicants take into account during their search activities reveals substantial differences. Interest recorded in the occupations of medical specialist, dental specialist, hairdresser and salesperson specialising in foodstuffs is almost exclusively female. By way of contrast, virtually only men are interested in the occupations of vehicle mechatronics technician, industrial mechanic, electronics technician or information technology specialist. It is rare for interest in an occupation by men or women to be approximately equal. Two examples of occupations where this situation applies are wholesale and foreign trade clerk and bank clerk.

The analyses conducted by BIBB investigated a large number of factors that may exert a positive or negative effect on the training search. The main factors in this regard are prior school learning of applicants, their search and application behaviour and the situation on the training market.

The BIBB investigation proves that the main reason for the differences in chances of success between women and men is the differing competition in their preferred occupations. The problem for women is that they compete very strongly amongst themselves for company-based training places in the service and commercial occupations which they favour. There is also quite a large degree of demand from men in some of these occupations. Men, on the other hand, have the advantage that demand for many private sector technical occupations generally tends to be lower and that there is practically no competition from women.

Nevertheless, the BIBB analyses also show that women cannot necessarily improve their chances of obtaining a company-based training place by redirecting their search towards occupations that are particularly frequented by men. The chances of success of women who concentrate on male-dominated occupations during their training search are in no way better than the chances of women who decide on other occupations. The authors state that that companies still seem to harbour reservations against women in male occupations. Although expansion of the career choice spectrum of women is a highly desirable aim, such a change can only succeed if there is, at the same time, a dismantling of the prejudices that still appear to prevail against women in occupations previously dominated by men.

Further information is available in issue 4/2014 of the BIBB REPORT, which is entitled: “Career choice of young women and men – chances of making the transition to company-based training and occupational prestige achieved”. This publication may be downloaded from the BIBB website free of charge at
www.bibb.de/bibbreport-4-2014.

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