On the road to gender equality? Gender-integrating processes in the truck driver profession

Today, we have significant knowledge of the mechanisms that create and maintain gender inequality in working life. However, changes towards incresed gender equality are not as well researched.

Therefore, more knowledge is needed about how gender-integrating processes function and how gender norms and gender patterns in working life can be changed and challenged.The proportion of women has increased significantly in recent decades in previously male-dominated, well-paid, high-status occupations that require higher education.

But why is the number of women now also increasing in male-dominated working class occupations, and more specifically as professional truck drivers?In Sweden today, the male-dominated profession of truck drivers consists of eight percent women. However, there are good reasons to believe that this figure will increase significantly in the coming years.

Increased interest in the profession by women can e.g. be observed in the upper secondary school´s Vehicle and Transport program, where 24 percent of those admitted in the autumn of 2020 were women.

The overall aim of the study is to investigate how gender-integrating processes in male-dominated blue-collar professions can be understood and explained, and thereby how gender equality can be improved. The empirical data consist of participatory observations and 40 interviews.

To understand gender-integrating processes in organizations, Ely and Meyerson´s (2000) theoretical framework regarding processes of change towards gender equality is applied.Collaboration with the transport industry takes place through dialogue meetings on three occasions. The scientific results of the study are presented at two research conferences and published in two scientific articles.

The applied knowledge is presented in a popular science text that is published in a transport industry journal and a conference targeting the transport industry.