The Decline of Women in Russian Engineering Education

Since the Communist Revolution of 1917 and during the ensuring Soviet times, the role of women in engineering and engineering education was strong with almost 60% of the engineers being women. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian women in these engineering careers has fallen to below 40% of the engineering workforce with a continuing downward trend. As a point of reference, the representation of women in the U.S. engineering workforce has remained around 9% with a very large attrition and departure of women from engineering professions during college and their early professional life. For a long time, the gender factor did not have any impact on solving the Russian problems, either politically, economic, or social. The presence of women in the technical professions of an engineering university has a number of advantages while presenting many problems. Among the many problems are the following: (1) a lack of career advancement for women in engineering education; (2) a shortage of women in administrative positions with influence in the decision making process; (3) the resurgence of chauvinistic stereotypes for women; and (4) the conflict between family and professional life. This paper explores the impact of gender bias in the Russian academic community and assesses the obstacles for technically trained women in the male dominated Russian university.