Learn about how applied social science was used in a state project to increase the number of girls and women in trades.

The following post summarises my team’s recent report.

Summary

• I led a research team tasked with increasing women’s participation in male-dominated trades, such as construction, electrotechnology and automotive sectors
• We worked in partnership with a government partner and large employers across New South Wales
• We conducted research, including consultations and communications testing, to improve recruitment practices
• We used social science theories and methods to test practical solutions

Background

Women make up only 2% of qualified trade workers in trades.

For the past year, I have led a state project to increase the number of girls and women in male-dominated trade occupations (‘non-traditional trades’), such as contruction, electrotechnology and automotive. These Australian industries have major skills shortages.

What We Did

Our project sought to identify behavioural barriers and enablers to increase the number of girls and women in apprenticeships and traineeships, as well as to increase women’s overall employment in trade occupations.

How We Did It

Together with our partners, our team delivered four work programs to test solutions: behavioural research, communications testing, a community of practice, and testing.

Behavioural research

• Reviewed existing evidence of what works in other programs nationally and internationally.
• Community consultation and fieldwork with 190 stakeholders across metro and rural New South Wales.
• Data analysis of over 414,000 apprentices across New South Wales.

Communications Testing

• Tested online advertisements with women and girls, to see which messages increased interest in trade jobs (with a reach of almost 287,500 impressions on social media).
• Experiments and an online survey with 1,300 people, to see how to bust myths and increase support for women’s careers in trades.
• Tested emails with over 400 students, to encourage girls to sign-up to new trade subjects.

Community of Practice

• We established and managed a network of large employers who were interested in increasing their recruitment of women.
• We provided training and advice on interventions to improve their practices, and how to test outcomes.

Testing

We scoped a project to test broader solutions to increase girls’ participation in trade education.

What We Found

Our findings were published in the Women in Trades Promising Practice Review. This report identifies four main barriers to the recruitment of women to trades:

1. Influential people discourage women from vocational education and training (VET). Parents, teachers and career advisors see VET as a low-status option that is less preferable than university. They see VET is ‘not for girls.’ They cannot envision a trade career pathway for girls and women.
2. Employers don’t do enough to eliminate bias. Our desktop research and fieldwork shows that workplace harassment is high in male-dominated sectors. Women experience discrimination during recruitment, and on-the job. This includes being given lower skilled work and fewer opportunities to grow. Women also lack support in the workplace and are often isolated.
3. Employers’ recruitment strategies and policies disadvantage women. Employers rely on their informal networks to hire new staff. Smaller employers, who make up the bulk of the sector, have no formal human resource processes to address gender equity. For example, they don’t have anti-harassment policies and reporting set up.
4. Parents, teachers, and career advisors’ lack of awareness of VET opportunities reduce take-up. They assume that students already understand the VET pathway, and aren’t interested. They think there are fewer jobs for girls and women in trades. They also think women are paid less than they would be if they go to university. All of these myths are incorrect.

Our report outlines various recruitment enablers for schools, employers, parents, and policy-makers. This includes:

• Personalisation: Draw attention to the benefits and career relevance of trades. E.g. Promote trade women’s professionalism and success.
• Prosocial messaging: Show that VET requires skill, that the work is professionally rewarding, and it has community benefits.
• Framing effect: Highlight losses, such as what women miss out on by not going to VET. Shift the focus from getting dirty and heavy lifting, to building and fixing a variety of projects, and working safely, in different contexts.
• Feedback loops: Provide information about actions and giving people a chance to change their actions. E.g. Send employers information about how incidents of discrimination impact business with a prompt to change recruitment practices.
• Friction costs: Reduce the hassle of recruitment for employers. Government agencies might provide employers templates and easy English job ad suggestions. E.g. Test behavioural language in job ads to demonstrate the impact of formal recruitment. This includes gender inclusive language, promoting work/ life balance, and parental support.
• Simplification: Schools can streamline parental conversations about VET careers using checklists and prompts.

Read our report.

How Social Science Helped

I used social science to scope and design the program of work. This includes leveraging my existing expertise running gender equity programs, and previous randomised control studies we had implemented to increase apprenticeship completions.

Our team used behavioural science theories to identify cognitive biases, barriers and solutions that we could test.

We also used qualitative and quantitative methods, such as:

• Qualitative interviews and focus groups
• Evaluations of employer sites
• A/B testing messages on social media
• Surveys of individual and community attitudes and how to combat biases
• Customer journey maps to identify each step required to achieve change. This includes identifying the hidden systemic issues that create barriers to change, and the procedures that lead people to drop off along the way.
  • E.g. how do students go from studying vocational education and training in high school, to pre-apprenticeships, to completing an apprenticeship or traineeship, to employment
• Behavioural science concepts to design posters, emails and advertisements that encourage behavioural change
  • E.g. Incentives on how much women can earn; anchoring, or how the presentation of information influences people’s judgements; framing of messages, to make change more attractive; social comparison to other people; and attentional bias, or how we make quick decisions based on what information seems most relevant to us, while ignoring other considerations
• Behavioural science theory to identify data requirements and measures. For example, creating an informed list of variables we needed to study (such as gender, geography, age, and so on), and a methodology for what analyses to carry out, including ethics requirements.
• Practical solutions that employers and agencies can implement. In academia, researchers often conclude by making general statements about policy change and further research. In an applied context, we need to make specific recommendations, with clear actions, that can be easily used by non-experts in their everyday work.