Attitudes can be used to prevent the division of occupations by gender
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Education and working life are still fairly strongly divided by gender. Women are increasingly entering male-dominated fields, but the change has not been as significant the other way around. We can have a great deal of influence in making different professions more diverse with our attitudes.
Separate employment services were available for women and men in the early 20th century. A career selection guide published in the 1950s, referred to a nurse as sairaanhoitajatar (-tar is the suffix used to create the female counterpart of a person/profession) and contained instructions stating that a male person is suitable for caring for a child occasionally but not continuously.
Although the division into gender roles is no longer as specific, education and working life in Finland are still strongly divided by gender. The division of the labour market by gender is referred to as gender-based segregation.
Gender distribution has become more balanced, but the change is slow
According to Statistics Finland, less than 10% of Finns work in sectors where the number of women and men is in balance. Even so, the gender distributions has balanced out in the fields of as data processing and telecommunications (ICT) and technology. In addition, women are now getting an education in male-dominated professions, such as lawyers and doctors, more often than previously. Even so, men are not more interested in finding employment in female-dominated sectors than before, which is at least partly attributed to the subpar working conditions and wages in women-dominated sectors. Efforts have been made to narrow pay gaps in recent years, but preventing gender-based segregation is slow.
Manu Jalonen, a business coordinator for the City of Turku, who works with immigrants, has made an interesting observation on the differences between immigrant men and Finnish men of Finnish descent.
"Immigrant men seem to be more interested in professions in the health and social services and education than men from Finland. In my opinion, the public sector should consider how it could improve the attractiveness of these fields, so that Finnish men would enter them as well. I also encourage women to become entrepreneurs more than at present, as only 30% of Finnish entrepreneurs are women at the moment. Thus there is still plenty to develop,” Jalonen says.
It may be somewhat surprising that the gender distribution in the textile and fashion sector is moderately well balanced.
“The number of women and men in the sector Finland is roughly 50-50. Before a textile goes from the designer's desk to a product , someone must be able to design, draw patterns and use machines and equipment. The process also includes tasks related to digitalisation and data as well as responsibility, sustainable development and the circular economy. We need a wide range of expertise. The interest, enthusiasm and competence of employees are more important than gender," explains Inna Ahlqvist, an expert at Finnish Textile & Fashion.
Choose your profession according to your interests
Business Coordinator Manu Jalonen has noticed that young people appreciate professions that they feel are somehow meaningful. According to the 2016 Youth Barometer, young people usually dream of professions typical for their gender and choose a profession based on rather superficial images. In this context, stereotypes of "female professions" and "male professions" are emphasised. The attitude of the surrounding environment also affects young people's choice of profession. It has been observed that if a young person chooses an atypical field of his or her gender, they may later switch to another field because they experience discrimination or harassment due to their choice of field.
Emmi Ek, who is studying in the electricity sector, has mainly been understanding of the attitude of other people.
“I ended up studying electricity because I'm interested in technology. I have had to justify my choice of profession to other people to some extent. However, my family encouraged my choice because my family includes other people who work in fields where there are more people from the opposite gender. I encourage everyone to go into a profession that interests them. It is not worthwhile to feel pressured by the attitudes of society towards your field or the fields in which your friends end up,,” encourages Ek, who is probably apply for engineering studies after vocational school.
Sonja Granith, who has graduated as a laboratory engineer, works for Åland-based company Optinova.
“I work in product development, which is a particularly male-dominated field. I do not know if I would have applied to become an engineer if my teachers had not encouraged me to study mathematics during school. You don't have to be a boy to do well in mathematics, and that's why I encourage other women to study it. It seems that engineers in Finland and around the world are predominantly men. I've wondered why women don’t’ enter the sector more enthusiastically. This work does not require physical strength. I don’t know if it is just a lack of interest or if is mathematics the thing that that scares them off,” Granith ponders.
Attitudes matter
According to Anna-Kaisa Anttila, operative director at Sunborn Live, which organises events, people like Emmi Ek and Sonja Granith encourage others to enter fields that are atypical for their gender.
“On the other hand, we can ask what is atypical and what is normal and who determines it. In this context, it’s a matter of attitudes, principles and the definition of standards. Enthusiasm, competence and skills are not gender-specific, as is not physical ability necessarily. We can influence our attitudes and, through them, the direction in which professional fields develop. It is also worth paying attention to how we talk about these issues,” Anttila points out.
According to Hanna-Mari Kemppainen, who works as regional director at Pilke Daycare Centres, the media should also pay attention to how it deals with different fields.
“In my opinion the manner in which the media cover early childhood education and care is such that it does nothing to help in getting new workers to enter our sector, which is suffering from a labour shortage. In addition to women, we definitely also need men show a characteristic adult model for children. We also hope to get more people of different ages and with immigrant backgrounds to join us,” Kemppainen says and stated that, in general, modern early childhood education and care no longer emphasises gender in the same way as before, for example by directing girls and boys to different games.
The aim of anonymous recruitment, which has become more common in recent years, is to reduce gender-based segregation of professional groups and thus create more diverse work communities. Anonymous recruitment refers to the processing of job applications without identifying information such as the jobseeker's name, image, age, gender or mother tongue. According to Mia Teräsaho, Development Manager of the Non-Discrimination and Gender Equality team at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), diverse work communities are more creative and innovative than other work communities. They also increase the financial profitability, productivity and well-being of companies.
A panel discussion on gender segregation took place at the RekryExpo fair at Turku Fair Centre on 14 November. The material used in the article does not take into account non-binary people in education and working life.