On the one hand, Much has changed Regarding the situation for women in our business community, from when I started working in aerospace R&D, twenty-five years ago. On the other hand, structures, a working culture, communication, and behaviour are often still observed that fall far short of responding to balance and openness to diversity.
To ensure the best talent works in and leads our aerospace community, it remains vital to attract more girls into technical fields at an early age.
At present, A significant number of women hold leadership positions in aerospace R&D (Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla, Sabine Klauke, Grazia Vittadini, to name a few alphabetically), and they are encouraging other women to develop their careers in this sector, either actively or simply through their visibility as role models. We also observe that an increasing number of women are obtaining University degrees in STEM fields and culminating in engineering doctorates (from 11.3 % in 2004 to 18.6 % in 2019 in Germany according to the Federal Statistical Office). Even the number of University professors offering aerospace engineering courses has increased from almost zero to 14% approximately. However, if we look at the percentage of women graduating As careers progress, it's no secret that the so-called «leaky pipeline» still exists, whether in postdoctoral positions, professorships, or industrial leadership roles.
Now, societal awareness, the growing utilisation of The benefits of diversity and the resulting set of measures to facilitate the integration of professional and private life for all genders have led to an improvement in the situation. In non-academic research institutions, the proportion of women in management positions grew significantly. For example, from 0.8% in 1995 to 21.1% in 2020 at the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, which also includes the DLR. The picture is quite similar in the case of large companies in the industrial sector, where flexible working time models have long been established.
However, a demand for «24/7 availability» and a «warrior culture» still prevails quite often, at least when it comes to leadership positions. These factors can lead to dissatisfaction and make some careers unattractive, particularly for women. Therefore, one important aspect is continue to change the work culture towards greater cooperation, effective communication and the fulfillment of private interests. Along with this, it is needed more flexibility, as individualised solutions can help enable better balance, such as shared leadership roles, part-time leadership, or automatic rotation of leadership positions. Furthermore, to get the best talent working and leading our aerospace community, it remains vital to attract more girls into technical fields at an early age, through teachers, parents, grandparents, family and friends. This is a task for all of us. If you haven't started yet, do so today.
