The current global population is just over 7.57 billion people, of which around
49.7
percent
are women and 56
percent live in
urban areas. Arithmetic leaves us with 2 billion women living in cities.
However, women make up less than five
percent of mayors, and there are
extremely few female decision-makers running Transport Ministries in the world:
Paola De
Micheli
(Italy), Ángela María Orozco
Gómez
(Colombia), and Gloria Hutt
Hesse
(Chile) are the most prominent names within this tiny minority group.
Although there are good examples of remarkable women in transport, they still
fit in
two
studies of the Transformative Urban Mobility
Initiative.
Not only at the country level but also among urban leaders, engineers and
planners, women’s perspectives and voices are significantly under-represented.
Too often, as the Women Mayors' Network points
out, “the shape of urban
development excludes women.”
“At present, it is fair to argue that there are no systematic gender-inclusion
procedures for transport — neither in terms of training of professionals,
participation of users nor the design and planning of systems, services, and
equipment,” states the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
(UNECE).
DEI and sustainability: The ROI of inclusive corporate cultures
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According to the European Commission, only 22
percent of
transport workers in Europe are women; and there is more thought-provoking data:
5 percent
of the world's pilots are women; female captains make up just under 3
percent of
cruise ship captains worldwide; and across England, Scotland and
Wales, just 6.5
percent of train
drivers are female. And in terms of road transportation, in New York City
just 1
percent
of yellow cab drivers are female; that number modestly rises to 2 percent in
England’s black cabs.
Although transportation seems to be a man’s world, women use public transit
more.
That’s why the Swedish Transportation Department proposed integrating gender
analysis into Swedish transportation policy and administration practices to
advance the goal of creating "a gender-equal road transport system designed to
fulfill the transport needs of both women and men." Objective or perceived lack
of citizen safety directly affects women’s wellbeing and access to wide-ranging
opportunities, as they are the primary users of public transport and public
spaces as pedestrians.
The numbers are disheartening; but we can find inspiration in the mission and
action of international organizations — such as
WTS,
WISTA,
Aviadoras and Women in
Transport, among others — that are working
towards gender equality, diversity and advancing both the transportation
industry and the professional women who are a growing part of it. And the
Transport Gender Lab is strengthening
the gender perspective in transport through cooperation and public policy in 12
cities in Latin America.
In ride-hailing services, the use of digital platforms and intelligence to
connect vehicle owners with riders in cities offers a significant employment
opportunity for female drivers, engineers, designers, user researchers, data
scientists and all kinds of STEAM and transportation professionals. It is an
industry capable of improving inclusiveness in urban mobility through the
participation of women in different roles.
Argentina constitutes an interesting example of female under-representation
in mobility: women solely account for nearly 27 percent of driver’s licenses.
Hence, we at Cabify — in partnership with Luly
Dietrich's
popular Mujeres al Volante community — are holding a variety of activities and
training programs with a view to bolstering women's access to the mobility
industry, as well as their self-autonomy.
At Cabify, our team’s female representation more than doubles the technology
sector’s average. We truly believe in the opportunity this represents and the
change we are making. By boosting women’s prominence in the urban mobility space
and truly promoting their access to senior management positions, our inclusive
vision for this sector is slowly but surely becoming reality.
But major challenges still lie ahead in the mobility world: In our specific
case, only 1.5 percent of our drivers are women; so since 2019, we have been
working together with IDB Invest to understand the
factors that could increase female drivers in our streets.
As the urbanist Jane Jacobs once
said,
“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody … only when
they are created by everybody.” And because safe and inclusive transport plays a
crucial role in socially sustainable development; if we want inclusive cities,
we must also listen to women.
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Global Head of Sustainable Impact and Safety
Cabify
Published Mar 8, 2021 10am EST / 7am PST / 3pm GMT / 4pm CET