Achieving Gender Balance in Engineering: Examining the Reasons for Women’s Intent to Leave the Profession

Abstract

This paper explores the factors that influence male and female engineers’ intent to leave. An online questionnaire was completed by 183 female engineers and 229 male engineers. Factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to develop models of intent to leave for male and female engineers. This study contributes to current knowledge by identifying the specific influence and inclusion factors that increase intent to leave for female engineers, and how these differ from male engineers. The findings show that an increase in access to career opportunities reduces intent to leave for both male and female engineers. This is the only similarity between the two models. Expanding the inclusion measure beyond social inclusion (belonging) to also assess how well individuals are supported to be their authentic selves, identified that for female engineers only, support to bring their authentic selves to work and developing influential relationships decreases intent to leave. For male engineers, pursuing their ideas against the odds reduces intent to leave, while being on the lookout for ways to improve one’s life and situation increases intent to leave. Therefore, organizations should ensure men and women have equal access to roles that help them upskill, are able to be their authentic selves, and can develop relationships with people of influence in the organization.