Shortage of Female Seafarers

The world wide shortage of trained officers has received considerable media attention. However, there is particular gap in the numbers of female seafarers in the profession. To date, women account for only an incredibly small proportion of qualified roles, for example, the UK officers’ union NUMAST reported that women accounted for just 1.4 percent of its total membership
of over 19,500.

An IMO report states women account for one or two percent of the 1.25 million seafarers in the world. As such, women represent an untapped resource for crewing the world fleet and addressing the current labour shortage. The IMO noted that women are an ‘under-utilised and underdeveloped resource which could provide part of the solution to the problem of crewing the future world
merchant fleets'.

Q) What can be done to attract more females into the male dominated seafaring profession? Are you a female seafarer and feel more could be done to welcome women to the profession? Share your experiences and thoughts here!

Read the full SIRC report here entitled "‘GET YOURSELF A PROPER JOB GIRLIE!’:
RECRUITMENT,RETENTION AND WOMEN SEAFARERS"