WOMEN IN MINING

Training Needs Analysis for Women in Mining in South African Context



Training Needs Analysis for Women in Mining

Introduction

Over the past few years, legislations and government policies compel the South African Companies to employ women at all designations, ranging from the lowest level to the senior most positions. Despite of the legislations, women employees face various barriers to entry while trying to achieve a career position in mining industry, due to their incompetence in technical education, non supportive work cultures and absence of mentors (Hermanus, 2007, pp.1).

To promote the role of women in the mining industry, there is a need for the mining companies to analyze that whether or not women are suitable for working in the mining industry; there is a need to find out the women capabilities and their training needs, and make decision on these analysis. This paper provides the current conditions of women in the mining industry in the South African Context and analysis on training needs for women in this field.

Gender Segregation in Occupations

The gender plays an important role in defining roles, responsibilities and occupations in most of the societies. Although some of the roles are governed by the biological origins of the male or female employee, but mostly the roles are defined by the social traditions, and history of the place or community.

Gender segregation in the work place, for nearly all occupations is governed by the social norms of the place. One of the important reasons of gender discrimination in the occupations is the engagement of the females in the reproductive, labor and care activities; due to these activities and other domestic responsibilities, the women become less mobile and not as physically strong as men. Thus, the women are mainly associated with the public service industry, instead of the construction or mining industries. For example, the public service industries, including health, education, flight operations, are over represented by the female employees. On the other hand, women employees are underrepresented in high paying jobs; these jobs often include higher order management positions in large organizations both in public and private sector, engineering positions, high risk jobs such as construction, fire safety, mining and manufacturing. In some occupations, horizontal segregation is found (domination of either male or female), while in the others, vertical segregation (fewer women work at senior or higher paying designations) is witnessed (European Agency for Health and Safety at Work, 2003, pp.23). Table 1 shows the domination of employees according to their gender in various professions.

Table 1: Gender Discrimination in Occupations

According to the human rights, as well as in the light of social and economic benefits, gender equity should be a necessary and integral part of the workplace. Due to the gender segregation and absence of opportunities in the various occupations, the women and girls come out to be poorer as compared to the males. Under such situation, most women choose for the illegal occupations such as drug delivery or prostitution; this is particularly true for the developing ...