Girls’ school-to-work transitions into male dominated workplaces

ABSTRACT

The article addresses school-to-work transitions among young women in a strongly male dominated professional sphere – the transport industry. Drawing on interviews with two girls over the time span 2015–2022 and visits to their upper secondary school 2016–2019, the study focuses on how power structures related to gender play out in the positioning that takes place in school and workplaces: How the girls were positioned socially and in relation to professional qualification, and how they positioned themselves in these respects. The findings indicate significant changes in discourse and practice when the girls transitioned from students to employees, changes which in the article are discussed in the framework of ‘inequality regimes’ and through the lens of the ‘glass funnel’ metaphor. Linking the funnel metaphor to the framework of inequality regimes broadens the picture to consider how young people are exposed to generally increasing inequalities in labour markets where institutions and organisations are affected by neoliberal economic policies, weakened collective protection of workers and wider wage gaps. With individualisation and insecurity, young people like the two girls in focus in this article, are increasingly left to fend for themselves in a harsh labour market.

KEYWORDS:

• Transitions
• vocational education
• gender
• glass funnel
• inequality regimes

Introduction

Vocational education and training (VET) is traditionally the most gender segregated part of the education system (Lorentzen and Chelsom Vogt 2022; Reisel, Hegna, and Christian 2015). Despite many years of policy work (e.g education policy, gender equality policy) to change the situation, gender segregation remains (e.g. Høst, Seland, and Skålholt 2015). Therefore, when boys and girls challenge gender patterns by choosing non-traditional vocational programmes, e.g. when girls enter programmes that traditionally attract boys and vice versa, this is much appreciated by policy makers and local school management – an appreciation also reflected in how they are treated by teachers at classroom level. As demonstrated in a Swedish study, girls enrolled in the male dominated vehicle and transport programme were ascribed value for being women in a male context and received support and recognition from teachers (Ledman et al. 2021).

Since girls’ mere presence in male dominated educational programmes is seen as something positive, there is a risk that their education becomes ‘protected’ space and the girls are scarcely prepared for what might await them when entering a male dominated labour market. As illustrated in the literature, crossing gender lines in apprenticeships, and in the labour market in general, might be challenging and even risky (Beck, Fuller, and Unwin 2006; Taylor, Hamm, and Raykov 2015). Women in low-skilled occupations and male dominated work-places risk harsh treatments with long- and short-term effects. Within the construction sector for instance, informal barriers have been found to obstruct not only recruitment of women but also their retention and progression (Galea et al. 2020). Similar mechanisms apply to apprenticeships and work in e.g. science, technology and engineering sectors. When women STEM graduates enter the labour market, they risk closer scrutiny, having to ‘prove’ themselves qualified by being as good as or better at their job than their men colleagues (Dockery and Bawa 2018). In addition to having their qualifications scrutinised and questioned, women in male dominated trades (including VET) risk being met with scepticism and resistance and may experience ambivalence and uncertainty in relation to their identity and self-image and a feeling of ‘not belonging’ (Bloksgaard 2011; UNESCO 2020). They can also be exposed to gender harassment in the form of belittling jokes and demeaning comments from colleagues, managers, customers, peers and teachers (Bridges et al. 2022; Butler 2013; Fielden et al. 2001; Foley et al. 2022). Given what these and other studies indicate, there is a risk that girls’ transitions from school to male dominated workplaces are experienced as challenging, with consequences for their continued careers.

This paper presents an in-depth analysis of school-to-work transitions among young women in a strongly male dominated professional sphere – the transport industry. Drawing on interviews with two girls over the time span 2015–2022 and visits to their upper secondary school 2016–2019, we pay attention to how the girls were positioned socially and in relation to professional competence by teachers, managers and colleagues in male dominated educational and work environments (RQ1), and how they positioned themselves in these respects (RQ2). The overriding inquiry concerns the transition from school to workplace, with focus on eventual changes in discourse and practice in terms of positioning.

Gender and vocational education and training has been a requested topic in educational research and the wider youth research field, e.g with two special issues in this journal (for editorial introductions, see Butler and Ferrier 2006; Niemeyer and Colley 2015). Research on the topic has increased, including studies highlighting women’s positioning in male dominated educational and labour market contexts. Our contribution is a study covering women’s experiences and positioning in the VET classroom and in subsequent working life, with a focus on eventual changes in discourse and practice between the two.

The Swedish VET and labour market context

In Sweden, EU and globally, labour markets tend to be highly gender segregated, especially sectors that do not require higher education (OECD 2017; SCB 2023a, 2023b). In Sweden in the early 2010s, only 3 of the 30 most common occupational categories among young people aged 16–24 had an even gender distribution (Ungdomsstyrelsen 2013), and among Swedish truck drivers 9% were women in 2021 (TYA 2022). Women and men work in different areas and working conditions differ. Men as a group enjoy more beneficial conditions than women as a group when it comes to prestigious work tasks, salaries, and opportunities for promotion (SOU 2004, 43).

The gender segregated labour market is reflected in vocational education (Panican and Paul 2019; Skolverket 2022), despite many years of state policy in education (and labour market) (MUCF 2017; SOU 2019, 4). Girls study programmes such as the health and social care programme and boys programmes such as building and construction. There are indeed programmes with gender balance, e.g. the restaurant, management and food programme but the overall pattern is that the educational programmes are either girl- or boy-dominated (e.g. Lundahl 2011; Panican and Paul 2019). One of the most male dominated programmes in Sweden is the vehicle and transport programme. The gender balance has improved in recent years, but the proportion of women is still down to 17% (Skolverket 2019). In the vehicle and transport programme students can choose between different tracks, and the transport track is most popular among girls. Almost 75% of the girls enrolled in the vehicle and transport programme choose transport, aiming at working professionally with e.g. industrial goods traffic or warehouse truck driving.

In general, VET students perform rather fast transitions to employment, but to various degrees depending on the programme and the student group. Male dominated VET programmes such as vehicle and transport obtain the highest employment levels after completing studies. Over 60% of the young people who received final grades with basic eligibility from the vehicle and transport and building and construction programmes had an established labour market position one year after upper secondary school (Skolverket 2018). However, there are gender differences within this group: male students graduating from male dominated VET programmes perform faster transitions to employment than female students graduating from the same programmes, which is in line with international school-to-work transition surveys. Being young and woman can serve as a double strike for those seeking to find productive employment. A year after completing VET, more graduates from the five boy-dominated programmes are in full-time employment, and they earn considerably more than graduates of the other programmes where more girls attend (Skolverket 2018).

Labour market scholarship has identified how deepening inequalities in the labour market affect working life globally as well as in Sweden (Boréus et al. 2021). Knowledge about young people’s differentiated transitions from school to work gains urgency when collective protection of workers weakens, and wage gaps increase under neoliberal economic policies. With individualisation and insecurity, young men and women may increasingly be left to fend for themselves in an increasingly competitive and demanding labour market.

Theoretical framework

Workplaces and educational institutions are permeated by power structures of various kinds. In this study we focus on gender. We acknowledge an overall gender order in society characterised by hierarchical power relations where women, in general, are ascribed lesser value and status than men (Connell 1987). The gender order plays out differently in different local and institutional contexts, for example in schools and workplaces, which may be governed by specific inequality regimes (Acker 2009). Within inequality regimes, certain individuals, in our case e.g. teachers, peers or colleagues, can play a key role in reiterating or challenging existing gender patterns.

‘Glass ceiling’ and ‘glass escalator’ are concepts widely used in analyses of social processes to highlight disadvantages for women in male dominated professions (glass ceiling) (e.g. Cotter et al. 2001), and advantages for men in female dominated professions (glass escalator) (e.g. Williams 1992). Women who want to make a career and reach high positions in male dominated professions are hindered by an (invisible) glass ceiling, while men who want to make a career in female dominated professions are lifted up higher in the hierarchy by an invisible glass elevator. Acker (2009) acknowledges the ‘Glass ceiling’ metaphor but suggests that ‘inequality regimes’ provides a more accurate metaphor as it stands for ‘gender, race and class barriers that obstruct women’s opportunities for advancement at all levels of organisational hierarchy’ (ibid:100). With similar arguments as Acker (2009) Hedlin and Åberg (2020) introduced in this journal the metaphor of glass funnel to analyse gender segregation and discrimination in vocational education. They aimed at challenging the static approach ‘Glass ceiling’ and ‘glass escalator’ brings to analyses of career processes. They argue that the funnel metaphor opens for complexities, variations and processes more than the ceiling metaphor which gives associations of less dynamic character.

Literally, a funnel is a cone-shaped utensil for channelling liquids through a hole in the bottom. When poured rapidly, the liquid will spin through the funnel, and if different liquids are poured at the same time, the heavier ones will pass through faster. For us, metaphorically, the different liquids are men and women. The glass funnel concept thus describes how the devaluation of women lays a weight on women which makes them pass faster through the funnel, seemingly leaving men spiralling at the top of the funnel for a longer time. (Hedlin and Åberg 2020, 6)

According to Hedlin and Åberg the glass funnel represents a metaphor for how individuals are being ‘propelled downwards through the funnelling motion’ made up of various power structures and normative discourses related to professional work in the production sector (Hedlin and Åberg 2020, 1). Following the authors, we see it as a metaphor that harmonises with an intersectional understanding of power, i.e. the idea that power is based on different reinforcing relations of oppression and never static (Collins 2022). Intersecting and complex power relations underpin education and working life – they strengthen and construct each other in various ways and thus influence everyday life and what kinds of ‘professionals’ individuals are allowed to be. In this article, we use the concept as an analytical lens to discuss how gender plays out with age in girls’ encounters with male dominated education and workplaces. In our analysis the ‘funnelling’ starts already in school with the positionings related to sociality and professional skills. Reiterated patterns of interactions at all levels of an organisation or institution are overall conditioned by distinct inequality regimes which need to be studied empirically in each specific context (Acker 2009).

Data and methods

The analysis draws on data from an ongoing qualitative longitudinal project on school-to-work transition among youths in three rural regions in the North of Sweden.¹ Our approach is that processes related to careers have to be understood biographically, and that biography is a lifelong process of meaning-making (Brockmann 2021), where each new situation is made sense of in terms of continuously accumulated and renewed knowledge. Thus, the ways in which individuals make sense of the social world and build their careers are rooted in past experiences. A basic tenet of our approach is that individual biographies of transitions not only provide insights into young people’s experiences and inner worlds but also permit us to capture diverse aspects of social contexts and conditions (Sandberg 2011). Individual narratives open for exploration of larger discourses on gender and working life in society (Hollway and Jefferson 2013).

The first individual interviews were conducted starting from 2015 with 65 youths, the youngest being 14 years old.² The latest round of follow-ups was conducted spring 2022 when they were 21/22 years old. To this date (autumn 2022) the project’s total data consists of in total 153 interviews, and further follow-up interviews will be conducted the coming years, with the ambition to follow the youths into adulthood. The youths’ participation in the interviews is voluntary, and for each interview round the individuals are asked to renew their consent to participation, and the data is treated with confidentiality (Vetenskapsrådet 2017).

The two girls were selected because they performed school-to-work transitions in male dominated professional spheres, and because we have had the privilege to follow them from lower secondary school, throughout upper secondary school and the years after having graduated.³ The analysis presented in this paper draws on seven individual interviews with the two girls. In the analysis, we also make use of ethnographic field-notes from visits to the girls’ school class during their secondary education (2016–2019).

The interviews have been analysed by means of thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006) and findings are presented in two themes. The results section opens with a section where the two girls, here called Moira and Ally, are shortly presented.

Findings

Moira and Ally

Moira and Ally grew up on the countryside in the same rural municipality in the North of Sweden and knew each other by name when they met in upper secondary school. Ally has working-class background and grew up in a remote house at quite a distance from the nearest village. Her father was a construction worker, her mother a pensioner and her two older brothers worked as janitor and truck driver. Moira grew up on a small farm, her father was a farmer, her mother worked as cleaner and her younger brother was about to take over the farm. Thus, both Moira and Ally grew up with a family habitus that made manual work viable (cf. Brockmann 2021; Taylor, Hamm, and Raykov 2015). They were both interested in motoring and vehicles, an interest that ran in their families, especially among their male family members. For Ally, motoring and vehicles was also professionally something that she could connect to as her older brother was a truck driver. Both pointed out a personal interest in motoring as the most important reason to why they applied to the vehicle and transport programme. They also considered the programme favourable for getting access to the local and regional labour market.

The school class Moira and Ally attended in upper secondary had a high proportion of men among students and teachers. The first year was an introductory year for all regardless of specialisation track, e.g. basic mechanics courses with teaching in a large garage-like workshop. The first year one fifth of the students were girls. The practical work in the workshop required a lot of help from the teachers so therefore often two teachers were in charge. The mandatory dress code in the workshop was blue workshop trousers and jacket, and rough work boots.

The programme has separate tracks during the second and third year (e.g. car repair and workshop mechanics, sheet metal and bodywork, transport industry). Both Moira and Ally chose the transport industry track, which is the most popular specialisation among female vehicle and transport students (Skolverket 2019). The second and third school year included internship periods for all students. For students in the transport track, the internship focused on driving skills and traffic safety.

Strong on social qualifications

Moira and Ally enjoyed the social climate in the vehicle and transport programme – they felt socially included, appreciated and well taken care of by their (mostly male) teachers (cf. Lahelma et al. 2014), and they liked their (mostly male) classmates. They also appreciated the teaching and were in general satisfied with their choice of education and the educational environment. When asked to work in teams or pairs in the workshop, Moira and Ally often chose to work with each other and/or with some of the other girls in the class. They were seldom seen working with any of the boys.

From observations, conversations and interviews during school visits the first upper secondary school year, we noted a general discourse ascribing value to girls’ presence in the programme. We also noted a more specific discourse ascribing girls with certain qualification characteristics such as being ‘careful’ and ‘responsible’. The teachers were those who upheld the discourse about the girls as being particularly careful and responsible, they spoke directly to the girls about their specific ‘female’ qualifications, but it was also part of a general discourse in their teaching practice about girls being more ‘careful with materials’ and having ‘the material in order’ (Fieldnotes vehicle and transport class, 2016).

The girls themselves did not oppose or protest being positioned as ‘careful’ and ‘responsible’ students. Yet, it was not a qualification they particularly pursued or valued – they valued qualifications in mechanics, electronics and driving skills more than carefulness and responsibility. They talked in interviews about being less skilled in mechanics than most of their male classmates, and during the school visits, we, as researchers, noted that the girls got into the habit of asking boys for help when they could not get the teachers’ attention in the workshop. This habit was narrated as connected to difficulties in getting the teachers’ attention, according to Ally, ’you have to wait a long time for help from a teacher’ (Ally, 2016). Asking their classmates for help was a routine sanctioned and recommended by the teachers. Thus, Moira and Ally got used to turn to male classmates for help during their education, a habit we argue reinforced their position as less qualified in mechanics than their male classmates.

The second school year, which was the first year for Moira and Ally specialising in transport, meant more female classmates compared to the first year. The second and third school year included school-based teaching in combination with internship periods. Moira and Ally had overall positive experiences from the internship periods. They were well taken care of by the supervisors and socially included. They also felt appreciated, a recognition they related to them being student girls and prospective female professionals. Thus, they experienced that being a woman in the male dominated transport industry context was a social position of general value. They appreciated this position, connected to a discourse about women being attractive in the labour market, in fact attractive to the extent that there were companies in the transport business that exclusively recruited and employed women:

Moira: Nowadays it’s rather common that girls choose to become truck drivers. Actually, there’s a company in town which hires women exclusively because we drive much more carefully than guys do.

Researcher: Do you?

Moira: Well, of course it depends, it depends on the individual, there are boys who drive like girls, and a girl might drive like a boy, but still there are studies saying that girls generally drive more carefully than boys (Moira, 2019)

Women employees were often selected to be supervisors for female students during internship periods, which was largely appreciated by the girls. But as the workplaces were strongly male dominated it happened that they were assigned male supervisors. Moira and Ally preferred female supervisors as they claimed they were easier to talk to and they felt safer and more relaxed with them. Even though they were trained to ask their male classmates for help when working in the workshop, they found it easier to ask a female supervisor than a male supervisor for advice on how to perform a task. A student in practice at a workplace is automatically in a subordinate position to the supervisor regardless of gender, but the power distance was perceived shorter to women than to men as expressed by Moira:

I feel safer when having a female supervisor doing internship at workplaces, I feel freer to ask questions and so on. […] I feel more comfortable, it’s much easier to sit and drive with a female supervisor than a male one. […] You don’t really dare to ask about things [to a male supervisor), my impression is that they expect me to know everything. (Moira, 2019)

Both Moira and Ally looked with confidence to the future and were rather confident about getting an employment after graduation:

Ally: The transport industry may have had a low status before, but not now. And there are more and more girls working, and this has led to a more positive attitude towards the profession.

Researcher: Do you think it will be easy to get a job?

Ally: Yes, I think so, and I think it’s even easier for girls. (Ally, 2017)

They looked forward to start working ‘for real’, to manage on their own, without a supervisor. They realised that working life would bring new challenges and increased demands for skills and independence, but still they were confident and believed that their future colleagues would show patience with them as ‘fledglings’, as expressed by Moira: ’everyone knows that you are new and understands that’ (Moira, 2019).

Although the teachers positioned the girl students as highly valuable and talked about them as specifically attractive in the transport labour market, in interviews and conversations the teachers conveyed a concern that it might be tough for girls when they one day enter the labour market as employees.

If you as a girl want to succeed in the vehicle and transport business, you must be skilled, there are higher demands on them, it’s tough, it’s a tough jargon out there, they can be tough on girls out there. It’s a tough industry. (Teacher, 2017)

To exemplify the teacher mentioned two former girl students who got employment at a big company in town but quit after a while: ‘They are not working there anymore. Actually, many [girls] we have had as students are not working in the profession anymore.’ When asked about how the teachers prepared the girls for the ‘tough’ working climate and the ‘tough’ jargon ‘out there’, the same teacher answered: ‘By sending them out for internships, that’s how we prepare them.’ But the extent to which the internship really prepared the girls for what awaits in working life can be discussed. According to the girls, the teachers carefully selected workplaces for internships as the teachers did not want to risk them ending up in ’bad’ workplaces where, due to the work environment or work culture, they would experience discomfort of any kind: ‘The teachers only collaborate with good companies, not bad ones.’ (Moira, 2019)

The findings demonstrate a discourse on difference between girls’ and boys’ qualifications as students and workers. Moira’s and Ally’s social qualifications (being careful and responsible) were highlighted and pinpointed as highly valued whereas their male classmates were recognised for their professional skills (in e.g. mechanics). The girls were thus positioned as socially valuable students/future workers – with qualifications of social nature rather than of professional nature. There was little evidence that they were socially excluded or discriminated – that they felt ‘not belonging’ or not accepted as has been indicated in the literature (e.g. Bloksgaard 2011; UNESCO 2020). Yet, Moira and Ally were differently positioned than the male students in terms of qualifications, a phenomenon which in previous research has been discussed as a ‘caring discourse’ about girls in practices of consumption work (e.g. Hedlin and Åberg 2020) but also regarding girls ‘working with machines’ (Ledman et al. 2021, 527). However, this different positioning was not obviously to the girls’ disadvantage, and there were no obvious tendencies to normalise gender inequalities, tokenism and harassment of women as has been observed in earlier VET studies (e.g. Bridges et al. 2022). The VET classroom stood out more as a protected space for the girls than an excluding space. But still, as highlighted by Kontio and Evaldsson (2015) in a study on everyday interactions in the vehicle engineering programme, the teachers, in their belief to be benevolent and equal, tended to reinforce gender differences when they highlighted the girls as a special group with specific competences.

Weak on professional qualifications

Moira and Ally got employment directly after having graduated. Ally’s first job was in a nearby town in a local industry transporting containers in a warehouse. She liked the work tasks but was dissatisfied with the social climate of the workplace. She felt that the colleagues did not respond to her socially and this contributed to a feeling of social isolation: ‘It wasn’t a nice workplace, it wasn’t social at all.’ (Ally, 2021)

Failing to develop social relations with her colleagues was frustrating in the long run, and after couple of months Ally decided to quit the job. She got a new employment rather soon at a small clean drain company in a nearby town from the village where she grew up. Her job was to drive clean drain trucks and carry out clean drains. She felt more socially included there than at her former workplace: ‘The difference between the social climate at this and the former workplace is huge, and social relations are so important.’ (Ally, 2021)

Moira’s first employment was in a large ore mine industry at a large distance from her home place which meant living away during the work periods. She had an hourly position in a contracting company where she transported ore and waste from the mine. Most of her colleagues were men. Unlike Ally at her first job, Moira liked her colleagues and developed close social relations with some, whom she also socialised with after work. She felt included and did not recognise what in previous studies has been noted as normative restrictions related to gender (cf. Brockmann 2021, 446). However, her appreciated social positioning was troubled by tough working conditions and long shifts. After nine months of shift work a new contracting company took over and the working conditions got worse. She suffered from the long shifts in combination with requirements to take only ‘short breaks’: ‘They expected us to work 12 hours without a break, but it didn’t work out for me, I needed to take breaks to pee.’ (Moira, 2021)

The management started to question Moira’s professional conduct, criticising her for taking too many and too long breaks. She thought the criticism was unfair as her colleagues had better access to toilets than she had as a women, it took them less time to find a toilet during a work shift. This was not an argument that the management of the new contracting company listened to, and when she argued that it was her legal right to take breaks, they threatened to fire her.

Then, when the new subcontractor came, they started to question my conduct, and when I said that you’re not allowed to work twelve hours without a break, after six hours you have to have a longer break, then they made a fuss of the whole situation. They considered me taking too many and long breaks even though I only went to the toilet a maximum of three times in twelve hours and was gone only for like five or maximum 10 minutes each time. And then they said they didn’t want to keep me because I complained too much and took too long breaks, even though I repeated that taking breaks to go to the toilet was my legal right. (Moira, 2021)

The threat of dismissal was realised, and she was fired on what she believed wrong grounds.

They fired me after a while. I had an hourly employment so they could fire me from one day to another. But I was fired on wrong grounds, they fired me because I complained too much […] but the only thing I did was to argue from a union point of view and remind them about the working hours law, what is right and what is wrong. (Moira, 2021)

Having received and signed the formal termination documents, she started to worry about her chances to get a new job. As the mine job was her first employment, she had no other work experience, and no other references to list than the manager of the company that just had fired her. In the vulnerable situation she found herself in, Moira contacted Ally, who at that time had started to work for the clean drain company in a nearby town. Ally suggested Moira to ask for a job there as she had heard the management talk about the need for expanding the work force. Moira contacted the management and was offered probationary employment, which later turned into a permanent position.

Moira and Ally thus became colleagues in the clean drain company, a company that offered what they considered varied, interesting but also challenging work tasks such as checking and flushing pipelines and fixing drain blockages. At this point, COVID-19 had broken out, but the pandemic did not affect work tasks or work routines at the company, the work went on as usual. The company had 17 employees. The manager was a man, and except for Moira and Ally, all employees were men. When asked about how they experienced working in a male dominated workplace their answers were somewhat contradictory. On the one hand they both claimed that there was no difference in how men and women were treated in the company. On the other hand, they claimed being treated favourably because they were women. Ally talked about colleagues being lenient with mistakes and shortcomings from them as girls: ‘It’s a good workplace, I don’t see any difference in treatment. Rather the opposite, you might get a little more help and people are a little more lenient if you screw up things.’ (Ally, 2021) Even though they were trained at school to ask (male) peers for (professional) help (Lahelma et al. 2014), it was something they tried to avoid as employees (cf. Brockmann 2021, 448). They did not want to ask for help themselves, but still they appreciated when they were offered help from colleagues voluntarily. Not wanting to ask for help was, as we interpret their talk, connected to wanting to prove themselves professionally qualified for the job (cf. Dockery and Bawa 2018).

Being treated favourably and receiving help without having to ask for it was thus narrated as a favour. However, they also understood this practice as part of a discourse about them being insufficiently professionally qualified for the job:

I have always known and been aware of that the transport profession is a very male dominated one, and especially if you are in the clean drain business like I am, actually there are not many girls who want to deal with feces. So, well, I notice more and more that I get looks and comments telling me that I’m not good enough, that my skills are not good enough. (Moira, 2022)

Having their professional qualifications questioned was mostly expressed as related to them being younger than the other employees at the company: ‘Their talk about being young, I understand it as directed towards me, a critique, like a shortcoming, that I am younger than the 40-year-old men and therefore less competent.’ (Moira, 2022)

Gender was also mentioned as a possible reason to having their professional competence questioned, but in more dubious terms, as if they didn’t want to believe that their gender identity had any bearing on how they were treated. At the time for the latest interview Ally had worked at the company for three years and was far from being the one with the shortest work experience among the employees. She was entrusted by the manager with tasks such as mentoring newly employed people who needed introduction to work tasks, routines etc. However, she perceived scepticism from the newly employed, like they did not fully trust her as a competent and experienced supervisor, something she understood mainly related to her young biographical age, but eventually also to her being a woman although she did not want to ‘believe that’.

I’m in my third year, so sometimes the manager asks me to take care of and introduce new employees, to let them accompany me when I work, to make them learn how it works here. But sometimes they [the new employees] don’t take me seriously because I’m young even though I have been working here for three years and I am asked to introduce them. When older colleagues, for example, 50 years old colleagues do the same thing, there are no complaints […] it might also have something to do with the fact that I’m a girl, but I don’t want to believe that, that me being a girl is the reason. It might be so, but yeah, I don’t know. (Ally, 2022)

Moira also expressed being uncertain about why their professional qualifications were questioned. The situation mentioned in the quote concerned a male colleague complaining about how Moira and Ally had performed a work task:

Older guys at the workplace, they kind of look down on us. We had an incident a while ago, we had a colleague who was quite rude to us so we went to the manager and told him about it […] and things like that kind of make you think, is he doing like that because we’re younger than him or because we’re girls? (Moira, 2021)

Both Moira and Ally were affected by the questioning of their competence, but they were outspoken about it to various degree. Whereas Ally talked about it in more neutral wordings, Moira said that the questioning discourse and practice made her ‘feel almost worthless’ (Moira, 2022). She handled the situation by keeping a low profile and upholding an acceptance attitude:

Some girls may speak up and protest directly when things like that happen, immediately when they start to feel that their competence is questioned. But I’m not like that, because I don’t want to create, I mean I want to show them my best side if you understand what I mean. (Moira, 2022)

But still it affected her, making her doubt her own competence:

For me, I kind of stay in the background when I am questioned, especially by older colleagues. So, I don’t object, I mostly sit and just agree. Of course, it depends on what is said, but most of the time I feel unsure and just agree. And I also start to think, well, maybe, maybe he’s actually right. (Moira, 2022)

The findings in this and the previous section indicate that the girls stood out as more vulnerable as employees than as students. As employees the girls experienced difficulties of developing what in previous studies has been addressed as an appropriate ‘vocational habitus’ (Taylor, Hamm, and Raykov 2015). In this specific case, such a habitus was strongly connected to professional competence, but also to being male and having reached a respectable biological age. When the girls entered the labour market as employees their social skills, which were highly valued in school and said to be important in the transport business, were given less value. However, it should be noted that it was mainly their colleagues who seemed to stand behind this devaluation. It is likely that the managers (who had hired them), like their teachers, attributed value to both social and professional competence in the transport profession. Being careful and responsible in a competitive industry where material costs are high is likely in the manager’s interest, but it may not be appreciated by other colleagues if it challenges the prevailing workplace culture. Moira and Ally adapted to the masculine work culture, striving to be assertive and conforming to working-class male patterns of interaction. They did not comment that they missed recognition of their social skills. As has been discussed by writers (e.g. Brockmann 2021), by conforming to male norms (in order to succeed in male dominated workplaces) women tend to reinforce rather than challenge masculine work cultures. But we also noted acts of resistance from the girls. They seemed aware of their employment rights and made complaints to their managers when they felt they were treated unfairly. Our impression was that the school had trained them to pay attention to discrimination and to alert the management/teacher staff in cases of inequalities, but at the same time perhaps remain rather complicit and accepting towards the overall workplace culture. Moira and Ally both tended to relate situations of experienced maltreatment to their (young) biological age rather than to their gender. Resistance to understanding maltreatment as connected to gender has in a study on women working in engineering been discussed as endorsed gender blindness (Doerr et al. 2021), i.e. not wanting to see discrimination based on gender, race, etc., but clinging to the belief that meritocratic ideals characterise workplace practices. As we interpret the data, Moira and Ally tended to align themselves to a similar gender-blindness, not because they did not believe that gender matters to work-relationships and careers, but probably because they did not want it to be the case. In countries like Sweden where the legislation supports equality and equal rights of men and women and where meritocratic ideals prevail, it can be difficult to acknowledge inequality regimes and discrimination related to gender.

Concluding discussion

There were changes in both discourses and practice when the girls transitioned from students to employees. As employees, the social qualifications recognised and valued in school (being careful and responsible) were no longer highlighted and pinpointed in discourse and practice, at least not among their co-workers. In fact, in the general workplace cultures in which they found themselves, social qualifications did not seem to be noted much. As employees, professional qualifications such as technical skills and driving competencies were highlighted important, and Moira and Ally were positioned as weak on professional competence. There was thus a discursive transformation along with the school-to-work transition, a transformation which we shall take a closer look at through the lens of the glass-funnel metaphor (Hedlin and Åberg 2020).

The funnelling movement towards being positioned as a woman worker began already in upper secondary school (in the workshop and during the internship periods) (cf. Ledman et al. 2021). The funnelling was at that time slow, fuelled only by a discourse and practice of difference between boys and girls, but not obviously to the girls’ disadvantage. Boys were ascribed value for their professional qualifications and the girls for their social qualifications. Thus, the funnel effect was weak in school – both female and male students kept ‘spiralling at the top of the funnel’ (cf. Hedlin and Åberg 2020, 6). One reason for the low funnel effect in school might be that power relations between individual students and groups of students (e.g. between girls and boys) are supervised and to some extent calibrated by teachers. The teachers mediated a discourse of difference between boys and girls but assigned both genders value (of different kinds). Furthermore, the students were about the same age, power relations related to biological age and the age in profession were much less accentuated in school than at the workplaces.

When Moira and Ally became employees the funnel effect took off significantly. Age was activated as a power axe when they (as newly graduated from upper secondary school) were the youngest employees in the work teams. But biological age and the age in profession seemed to be mixed up. Despite the fact that Ally was not the youngest in the profession she was met with scepticism when introducing new employees. When the girls’ young biological age and/or young age in the profession intersected with gender, the funnel effect increased distinctively. The intersecting of gender and age, made the ‘downward spiral’ more powerful as the transition went on, positioning Moira and Ally as young women transport workers with less competence than their male colleagues.

The funnelling works as a metaphor for illustrating how the girls were positioned as women students and young transport workers, and how gender and age intersected within the broader institutional and organisational inequality regimes. The funnel effect was also reasonably affected by how the girls positioned themselves as students and workers – to what extent did they adapt to their positioning, and to what extent did they oppose it in order to position themselves differently? As has been pointed out by Brockmann (2021), it is common that women, in effort to overcome the challenges of being in a male dominated workplace, seek to embody male norms, and align themselves with their male colleagues and by those means, reinforce masculine work cultures. As outlined by Butler (2004), discursive regimes of gender exert enormous regulatory power and individuals feel compelled to conform to normative positions because they want to live ‘livable lives’ and to be intelligible social beings.

In general, the girls in this study wanted to position themselves as ‘one of the boys’ (cf. Brockmann 2021, 441; Butler 2013). Though, in some situations they tried to reposition themselves. These were situations when they experienced having their professional qualifications unfairly criticised and/or questioned. For example, Moira protested when the management criticised her for taking too long breaks, and they turned to the management to complain when a colleague openly disqualified their work. In the latter case, they obviously had each other’s support, and they took on action jointly. These efforts to reposition themselves can be understood as trials to (unconsciously or consciously) reduce the accelerating funnelling effect. But still, as demonstrated in the previous sections, the funnelling accelerated significantly when they became employees, a funnelling which in discourse and practice shaped the girls as (young) women workers in the male dominated transport sector.

Linking the funnel metaphor to Acker’s 2009 inequality regimes broadens the picture to consider how young people are exposed to generally increasing inequalities in labour markets where institutions and organisations are affected by neoliberal economic policies, weakened collective protection of workers and wider wage gaps (Boréus et al. 2021). With individualisation and insecurity, young people like Moira and Ally are increasingly left to fend for themselves in a harsh labour market.

The school has an important role in preparing young girls (and boys) for what awaits them when they transfer into working life. With the help of teachers, power relations at workplaces can be exposed and discussed. Such discussions can empower the individual to (re-)act when being exposed to inequality regimes at workplaces. Further, supervisors and managers have an important role in countering inequality regimes by e.g. being alert to unequal treatment and setting the tone for colleagues.

Ethical approvement

The study is approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority, 2020–04518.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Kristina Ledman and Katarina Kärnebro Umeå University, and to Tero Järvinen University of Turku for valuable comments on a draft of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The project is funded by the Swedish Research Council, Grant 2020-03101

Notes

1. The project is funded by the Swedish Research Council under Grant 2020-03101 and approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (2020-04518). It uses data from two previous ethnographic projects, one led by Elisabet Öhrn, University of Gothenburg and another by Per-Åke Rosvall, Umeå university.

2. Youths participating in two previous projects were contacted for participation in this new longitudinal project and data linked to those who wanted to participate are re-used and re-analysed together with new data.

3. There are a few more girls in the total dataset who performed school-to-work transitions in male dominated professional spheres but they were neither interviewed nor visited during their upper secondary years.