On the 18th of May, on the occasion of the international day for women in maritime, FEPORT participated to a very interesting conference organized by the Municipality of Livorno with RETE, the University of Pisa and CNR-IRISS dedicated to the important topic of women in maritime and ports. The conference was entitled: “Women in the maritime and port sector, why not?”.
According to an UNCTAD port performance scorecard, women’s participation rate in ports is only 18%. Their participation in ports’ operations and services departments is even lower at 16%. And this is a pity in 2023.
Port stakeholders are under increasing pressure to better contribute to the economic, environmental and social sustainability. This implies investments in new technologies and use of renewable energy sources but also more action in the field of social responsibility.
A social issue that has not yet received attention from all stakeholders in the framework of social responsibility is gender equality, which is key for achieving sustainability. And although the promotion of female employment is included in the European Sector Social Dialogue between port workers and their employers, the percentage of women in ports is still quite low, where women make up only an estimated 2% of the world’s maritime workforce according to the International Transport Federation.
“Sustainable work” has to facilitate mixed work options for women and men and two key areas that port stakeholder must improve, in order to achieve gender equality, are gender segregation, and gender equity.
Gender segregation refers to the patterns of representation of women and men, for example in the labour market. Gender segregation is the root cause of gender inequality. Traditional gender segregation, due to social norms on the jobs considered to be appropriate for each gender, is still predominant.
At an industrial level, some of the male-dominated industries are: financial markets; computer games; construction; design; forestry; and the port industry.
A number of government efforts materializing in gender equality laws serve as a starting point in reducing gender segregation and improving existing work environments. However, more thorough actions are needed to reduce access barriers to jobs and to help retain the under-represented gender.
Gender equity is the other means ensuring fairness to women and men, as well as to the strategies and measures needed to compensate for women’s historical and social disadvantages, and it is instrumental in achieving “gender equality”. Without equal opportunities for men and women gender equality cannot be reached.
Within ports, research on gender equality should focus on more than gender discrimination and sexual harassment. It should look at the effects of empowerment of women in maritime sector; gender equality in terms of maritime education and training; potential challenges, barriers and opportunities for women’s employment in the maritime industry; and work-life balance of women in the labour force in the maritime sector as these are the progresses which will speed us up the process of inclusion of women in ports and in the maritime sector in general.
Source: FEPORT