All the efforts to encourage young women to study engineering at university miss a big part of the problem. It’s not that women dislike the discipline, its working with male engineers they are not too keen on.

Women engineers are paid less, are concentrated in jobs with less responsibility, and many are uncomfortable in the workplace.

The findings in a new survey for Professionals Australia are scathing;

Women earn 11 per cent less than men, because they work in less senior jobs

Some 47 per cent of women surveyed “reported that they had experienced discrimination on the basis of gender. They are also “far more likely” to report age discrimination.

And “workplace culture” is an issue for 60 per cent of women engineers.

“As well as efforts to encourage women and girls into engineering, an effective long-term solution will require addressing the complex range of factors that operate to disadvantage women in employment generally, as well as the factors particular to the engineering workforce that create disadvantage and lead to the attrition of women from the profession,” Chris Walton from Professionals Australia says.