Women Engineers in Kuwait: Perception of Gender Bias

Abstract

AbstractThe greatest obstacle to the development of policies for the curtailment of gender bias is lack of information on the scope and effects of the problem. This study represents an attempt to quantify attitudes toward gender bias among professional women engineers working in the State of Kuwait. The major findings that emerged from the study were as follows: a) Since 1970, Kuwait has witnessed an enormous growth rate in the participation of women in higher education. b) With respect to the job‐related factors of salary scale, professional treatment, responsibility, benefits, and vacation, a clear majority of the professional Kuwaiti women engineers surveyed expressed a feeling of equality with or even superiority to their male counterparts. c) The one job‐related factor in which significant gender bias was found to be in operation was that of promotion to upper management positions. In this criterion, the women engineers surveyed felt “less than equal” to their male colleagues. The feeling of employment equality reported by the survey population was found to be positively correlated with level of education, years of work experience, and grade point average. These relationships were all significant statistically. Among the job‐related factors contributing to the feeling of equality, were, in order of importance, professional treatment, promotion, level of responsibility, and the opportunity to reach upper management positions. Interestingly enough, salary scale contributed the least to the feeling of equality. Coefficients of determination and variance component analysis supported these findings.