Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB)

Equal opportunities for (young) women in vocational education and training? - Take advantage of the Girls' Day 2005

Dr. Mona Granato

The key data is well known. Young women are now achieving better educational qualifications than young men. In terms of commitment, stamina and flexibility they are also at least level; this has not, however, led to an increase in their prospects of obtaining training within the dual system of vocational education and training. Young women, who make up 41% of trainees in the dual system, continue to be underrepresented.
Training paths of young women and men are also still different. Young women more frequently switch to school-based training courses and more often end up in training courses leading to a comparatively lower value qualification, which also more rarely results in an occupation enabling them to support themselves independently. For 85% of young women, a completed course of vocational and educational training goes without saying, just as it does for young men. But for how long? In the face of the shortage of training places, 2004 saw 40% of young women who registered with employment agencies as apprenticeship applicants obtaining a training place in the dual system, compared to 47% of young men, according to the latest results from the Federal Employment Agency (BA)/BIBB survey on apprenticeship applicants in 2004. The figures for 2002 were 49% of female applicants and 54% of male applicants. Equal opportunities in the vocational education and training of young women and men are not yet in sight.

The fact that the lack of training places affects young women and men in different ways is something which is mostly overlooked in the current educational debate about the shortage of apprenticeship places. Another mostly neglected fact is that the situation regarding initial training for young women in eastern Germany and for young women from a migrant background has been particularly difficult for years.
The requirements young women have in terms of their future careers are diverse and as high as their willingness to obtain a suitable basis via qualified vocational and educational training. But what of their chances of realising this? To what extent are young women actually succeeding in implementing their occupational orientations? How do gender-specific differences emerge in the phase between finishing school and beginning vocational and educational training? How can gender mainstreaming help overcome this? Young women's' transition from school to training is on the one hand associated with growing leeway for action, but on the other hand brings with it increasing risks. What does this mean for the actions which are open to female school leavers? The concentration of young women in certain occupational sectors, which are few in number, and their under average participation in training which opens up opportunities leads us to question what actually goes on in the transition process between school and training for young women.

In the following articleslight is thrown on orientations and strategies of young women in the first stage of deciding on a career,

• the training situation of young women and men is analysed,

• vocational training of young women in east and west is compared and the training situation of young women from a migrant background is investigated,

• the flow of young women into technically oriented occupational training is considered in more detail and the attempts to explain this are discussed,

• the themes of gender competence in initial and continuing education and training and the ambivalence of modern occupational categories for women are discussed,

• possibilities of how the potential of young women and men can be better used are presented,

• older women's approaches towards qualification and potential are analysed.