NATION Gender barrier at work for girls

HALF of Aussie teenage girls see their gender as a barrier to career success while one in three believes boys have access to more opportunities.

The MyRoad Careers Survey – by Beacon Foundation and Coca- Cola Australia of girls across Australia in Years 10 to 12 — found 49.4 per cent believed their gender could stand in the way of their career, 35.8 per cent believed boys would have more opportunities and 50.5 per cent did not have someone influencing their career decisions.

There was also a gap in career aspirations between respondents in capital cities and regional areas.

The largest disparity was in NSW – 87 per cent of girls in Sydney planned to pursue a career path compared with 73 per cent in the rest of the state.

In Queensland, it varied from 84.4 per cent in Brisbane to 72.9 per cent for the rest of the state. In WA, it varied from 90.9 per cent in Perth to 80 per cent for the rest of the state.

Beacon Foundation chief executive Scott Harris said he was not surprised by the research.

“Girls’ educational performance is often above their male peers, but there is low aspiration,” he said.

“In some areas, the role of young women is the same as in the 1920s or ’ 30s.

“That then leads to all sorts of issues in terms of quality of life and their future.

“Often they don’t have solid role models around them. They need to know ‘ the world is your oyster, you can do whatever you want’.”

Beacon Foundation and Coca- Cola have been running joint project MyRoad since last year, offering online mentoring by industry professionals to small groups of girls in high schools all over the country.

About 2000 girls have completed the program, including students from Blacktown Girls High School.

Year 12 students Oana Joya and Karla Alegre said they did not necessarily see girls as disadvantaged in the job market, thanks to the messages coming from teachers, peers and family.

Ms Joya, who plans to study fine arts, animation and graphic design after high school, said girls would be less hesitant to pursue careers if they were better educated about their options.

“I believe girls and boys have the same opportunities, it’s just there is such a huge stigma around gender and girls might be hesitant to learn or explore more about the workforce,” she said.

“Seeing all the opportunities provided to us by the school and what we learn from each other has helped me formulate that point of view.”

Ms Alegre, who hopes to become a physiotherapist, agreed girls can have any career they want.

“If you look around society, there are many women who have done amazing things in the world and girls can use that as motivation to continue what they enjoy doing,” she said.

“My mum and my grandma are my role models. We migrated from the Philippines and they used to live in poverty.

“Hearing their hardships helped motivate me to do better at school.”