Gender Diversity in the Aviation Workplace

In the past 90 years, the workforce has been diversified in many fields yet gender diversity for occupations in the aviation domain (e.g., pilots, air traffic controllers, aircraft maintenance technicians) has grown slowly. To explore this issue, the objective of this archival study was to examine the increase in the number of females and males from 2005 to 2018 for six aviation occupations in the private sector (civilian) in the United States: aircraft pilot and flight engineer; air traffic controller and airfield operations specialist; aerospace engineer; avionics technician; aircraft mechanic and service technician; and aircraft structure, surfaces, rigging, and systems assembler. Data were obtained from the American Community Survey using Public Use Microdata Sample from the United States Census Bureau. Results revealed females still comprise a very small percentage of the total workforce across aviation occupations. Change across the years was shown to be more erratic for females, compared to males. Further research is warranted to investigate the underlying causes for these erratic trends in the female aviation workforce in order to help solve the severe labor shortage affecting the entire aviation industry. Keywords: aviation, diversity, gender, labor shortag