An analysis of gendered attitudes and responses to employability training

Abstract

Training programmes for unemployed people are often designed to meet the identified vocational skill needs of businesses. We describe research across a number of projects in Leeds (United Kingdom) providing training to unemployed and marginalised adults. The focus was on those with multiple barriers to accessing and sustaining training and employment (including disability, mental illness, homelessness, substance abuse, refugee or immigration status, language, religion and culture). We found substantial gender differences in attitudes towards (un)employment, training and education, including ‘employability’ skills training. Women in our study were more likely to explain their unemployment in terms of ‘self’ or intrinsic failures: inadequacy, weakness or lack of requisite skills. For men, unemployment was seen as a consequence of extrinsic circumstances: bad luck, the failure of others or lack of support. Women were more likely to cite their barriers to training as social, personal or attitudinal, compared with men who saw them predominantly as structural and practical. Men most valued the acquisition of ‘hard’ skills, while women valued gains in confidence, reflective learning and teamwork. These results have implications for the design and delivery of employability training, particularly the need to support women to develop the requisite self‐competencies that create individual autonomy.