Maritime education and training (MET), female students, women promotion policies, gender equality, role of women in the maritime sector, women professional career

Although the figures of female students in technical studies have increased in recent years, in MET male students still greatly outnumber female ones. This inequality is transferred to the maritime professional sector, where the proportion of women in different types of jobs and management positions is still far from the desirable expectations.This study analyses the enrolment and graduation figures of female students in several MET institutions over the last decade (2009-2018) with the aim of providing a better understanding of the current situation. This analysis also considers the gender policies applied in the different centres over the same period of timeto determine their effectiveness over female student enrolment. The results reveal that thisgender imbalance persists in all the institutions analysed and that there is no evident raising trend concerning the figures of female students enrolled and graduatedover the last decade for the centres examined. In addition, gender equality promotion policies are still scarce or inexistentand have had a limited effect on female enrolment figures. Thus, it can be concluded that much remainsto be done to improve the present situation and to overcome this gender gap in MET. Some proposals presentedin this paper includethe joint development of gender equity policies by national maritime administrations and international maritime organisations and agencies, the incorporation of female student promotion policies at earlier educational stagesand the analysis of female students’ expectations and motivations for choosing maritime studies