Ghanaian women and the

engineering profession
E. A. BARYEH*, R. Y. OBU, D. L. LAMPTEY, University of
Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana, and N. Y. BARYEH, Department of
Biological Sciences, UST, Kumasi, Ghana. 〈earbaryeh@temo.bca.bw〉

Received 19th October 1998

Revised 25th May 1999

The number of Ghanaian women in the engineering profession is very low compared to that
of men, although current government policies on education promote equal educational
opportunities for both sexes. A study has been conducted on some Ghanaian women
engineers and women engineering students, with some input from some male engineering
student counterparts, and male and female engineering lecturers.
It was found, amongst other reasons, that the absence of counselling in secondary
schools, difficulties in understanding mathematical concepts, criticism and discouragement
from people and the low number of female lecturers are some of the causes of low female
participation in engineering. Cultural and social stereotyping of male and female roles in
jobs did not worry the female engineers and engineering students. The major motivating
factors were natural curiosity, mathematics and science ability, and influence from family
and non-family members. They had high career aspirations of rising to management,
executive positions and setting up engineering firms. The engineering lecturers and male
engineering students were all in favour of increasing the participation of females in
engineering. Some suggestions have been made on what to do to increase female
participation in engineering.

Key words: female, engineering, career, natural curiosity.

INTRODUCTION
Before independence and some years after, most families in Ghana laid more emphasis on
the education of males than females. This discrepancy in the education of men and women
was inherited from colonialism. Colonial governments trained girls to go into nursing,
teaching, home science or trading, while boys were trained to go into engineering, medicine
and science. Women are therefore often under represented in jobs requiring high levels of
education, especially in science and engineering.
Women constitute over 50% of the total population in Ghana. Economically, women
contribute 75% towards food production, 60% towards domestic food storage and food
processing, 75% towards marketing and about 90% towards all household activities in
*
Address for correspondence: E. A. Baryeh, Botswana College of Agriculture, Private Bag 0027,
Gaborone, Botswana.

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 Ghanaian women and the engineering profession 335

Ghana, yet their training in modern technologies still lags far behind that of men [1]. Most of
the female workforce is therefore classified as semi-skilled or unskilled, and often in occupa-
tions which are vulnerable to budget cuts and retrenchments [2, 3].
Most African countries have a shortage of all kinds of qualified personnel in higher
education, with the shortages being worse in the natural sciences, medicine and engineering.
Women’s lack of education and training as well as stereotypes about their ability to master
mechanical and technical skills have been the major barriers to their upward mobility.
Present educational policy in Ghana allows for female enrolment in all programs,
including non-traditional women’s programmes like engineering. This gives women equal
access to education and training as men. Nonetheless, the Ghana Bureau of Statistics [4] has
indicated that the universities in Ghana still display higher numbers of enrolment for men
than women in most disciplines. The ratio of men to women at the University of Ghana,
University of Science and Technology (UST) and University of Cape Coast, the largest
universities in the country, are 4:1, 5:1 and 5:1 respectively. The disparity between men and
women is even more pronounced in the School of Engineering at UST, where the ratio is 8:1,
although the entry requirements for females are lower than those for males. Thus,
professional engineering courses in Ghana, as in other parts of the world, have always been
male dominated. The high female demographic size, the importance women play in the
economic development in Ghana, and the low participation of women in engineering make it
imperative to promote and encourage women’s participation in the non-traditional women’s
disciplines like engineering.
This study interviews engineering students, engineering lecturers and female engineers to
find out motivations, perceptions, aspirations and problems of females in the engineering
profession in Ghana.

CAREER CHOICE
Working to earn a good living in the modern world is as important to women as it is to men.
As a result, the female workforce is on the increase. Women, however, tend to settle for low
and middle level jobs. This is because factors such as inadequate formal education and
occupational skills, limited occupational horizon, traditional and social prejudices, male
chauvinism of employers, sex discrimination and concomitant sex role expectations affect
women’s career choice [5].
Culture, environment, socio-economic class, parents and family, school community,
church community, etc., also have direct and significant impact on the vocational choice of
women. Most Ghanaian teachers feel their female students will be nurses, homemakers,
hairdressers, teachers, clerks, social workers and midwives [6]. This agrees with findings by
Prytz [2] and Kane [7], that in spite of the gains in sex equalization efforts, women to men
ratios in service occupations, clerical jobs, elementary school teaching, librarians and social
workers are 1.7:1, 3:1, 5:1, 4:1 and 6:1 respectively, while only 10% of lawyers and judges
and 12% of medical doctors are women even in an industrialized nation like the USA. The
ratio is often worse in the engineering and technological fields.
It is obvious that in order to allow women freedom in their career choice and encourage
them into male dominated careers, the above militating activities must be terminated.

METHODOLOGY
Two types of designs are involved in data gathering in research: quantitative and qualitative

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336 E. A. Baryeh, R. Y. Obu, D. L. Lamptey and N. Y. Baryeh

[8, 9]. Qualitative design was used for this study because of its exploratory nature, and data
was collected through semi-structured, open-ended qualitative interview schedules on an
individual, face-to-face basis.
The interviews for the study were conducted on fifty female engineering students, twenty
male engineering students and fifteen lecturers, all of the School of Engineering at the UST,
which is the only university in Ghana which trains engineers, and twenty women practising
engineers furnished by the office of the Ghana Institution of Engineers in Accra.

DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE

The data collected were sorted out and put into categories, based on common ideas and/or
statements. The themes that emerged from the categories were analysed using frequencies
and percentages. Casley and Kumar [8] indicated that one of the strengths of a semi-
structured, open-ended interview is that the information from various respondents is compa-
rable enough to determine the simple frequency of responses.
The Fisher Exact Probability Test [10, 11] was used to find the significance of the
differences of some of the results, for practising and student female engineers.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Age and marital status of respondents

In the discussion below, ‘respondents’ refer to female engineering student respondents (FES)
and female practising engineer respondents (FPE). The ages of the respondents ranged from
18 to 37 years. Ten per cent FES were below 20 years, 80% between 20 and 25 years and
10% between 26 and 30 years. Twenty per cent FPE were between 20 and 25 years, 60%
between 26 and 30 years and 20% between 30 and 40 years. The ages of the male engineer-
ing student respondents were between 19 and 28 years, while the ages of the lecturer
respondents were between 30 and 55 years.
Four per cent FES were married without children. Eighty per cent of the unmarried FES
wanted to complete their programmes before getting married, while 20% were not married
because they had not met a suitable marriage partner. Eighty per cent FPE were married with
one child each and they all hoped to have more children. All the married respondents were
married to professionals like doctors, business executives, accountants, consultants, and
engineers. One student respondent remarked:

People, including some relatives thought that studying engineering makes women
peculiar and makes them not get married. To them marriage is the most important
thing in the world. They claim we are scaring away potential marriage partners by
acquiring higher education in such a unique field. I am glad and proud to say that the
majority of our seniors who completed the programme are now married with children.

None of the male engineering student respondents were married, while all the lecturer
respondents were married with between two and five children.
The results of the study clearly indicate that the engineering profession for women is not
a barrier to marriage. This supports Odugbesan’s [3] finding, in a study on women in
technical education training in Africa, in which 90% of the respondents were married with
children.

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 Ghanaian women and the engineering profession 337

Distribution of FES respondents

The School of Engineering at UST had a total of 83 female students out of a total of 600
students at the time of this study. The distribution of the female students according to the
engineering programmes offered and year of programme is shown in Table 1. The table
indicates that most of the female students were enrolled in civil, chemical and electrical/
electronics engineering, while the least number was enrolled in agricultural and mechanical
engineering. This is partly because most of them had some prior knowledge of the existence
of civil, chemical and electrical/electronics engineering, and partly because they felt the
other engineering disciplines are more strenuous and more likely to injure people.

Table 1. Distribution of female engineering students (FES)

Engineering Number of students per year of programme

programme First Second Third Fourth Total

Agricultural 0 1 0 0 1
Chemical 7 9 5 0 21
Civil 5 8 8 8 29
Electrical/electronics 8 2 6 3 19
Geodetic 0 2 1 0 3
Geological/mining 2 1 0 0 3
Mechanical 1 0 0 0 1
Metallurgical 1 3 1 1 6

Total 24 26 21 12 83

Table 2 displays the engineering disciplines of FES and FPE. All the FPE were in
chemical, civil and electrical/electronics engineering, while the FES covered all the
engineering disciplines offered at UST and all the years of the programmes (28%, 30%, 26%
and 16% were in the first, second, third and fourth years respectively). Civil and electrical/
electronics engineering had respondents from each of the four years of the programme. The
reason for the choice of engineering discipline of the FPE were similar to those of the FES.

Table 2. Distribution of engineering disciplines of respondents

Engineering discipline FES(%) FPE(%)

Agricultural 2 —
Chemical 28 20
Civil 38 60
Electrical/electronics 24 20
Geodetic 2 —
Geological/mining 2 —
Mechanical 2 —
Metallurgical 2 —

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338 E. A. Baryeh, R. Y. Obu, D. L. Lamptey and N. Y. Baryeh

Type of secondary school attended

Forty-eight per cent and 40% FES and FPE respectively attended a mixed secondary school.
The rest attended secondary schools for girls only. Forty-five per cent FES and 60% FPE
revealed that the secondary schools they attended influenced their career choice. They attrib-
uted their high performance in mathematics and science to the good secondary schools they
attended. Those who attended mixed secondary schools, confessed that their secondary
school male colleagues, who were also planning to study engineering, had some influence on
their choice. This confirms that the environment in which a person lives can affect the choice
of his/her career as indicated by other researchers [12, 13]. They indicated further, that their
interaction with male students in secondary school, created an atmosphere of equality, com-
petition and freedom of choice, and it got them used to the boys even before they enrolled at
the university. They noted that the boys always wanted to take decisions for the class. Those
who attended all girls secondary schools revealed that it took some few months for them to
get used to their male colleagues at the university.

Motivating factors for respondents

The major factors that motivated respondents to choose engineering as their career are
displayed in Fig. 1. Some were influenced by more than one factor but only the major ones
are shown in the figure.
For the FES and FPE, 24% and 25% respectively, were motivated mainly by their natural
curiosity of the engineering discipline, and 24% and 22% respectively were motivated by
their high mathematics and science abilities. Newton [14] and Granstam [15] have reported
that the decision to study engineering for young women overseas, follows a recognized
ability in areas such as mathematics, physics and chemistry rather than a long held ambition
to be an engineer. Amateifio [16] also found that women who went into engineering in Sierra
Leone did so mainly because they were good in science and mathematics. In Ghana, how-
ever, this study has shown that the main motivating factor is women’s curiosity about the
engineering profession, followed by their ability in science and mathematics.
Natural curiosity, mathematics and science ability are based on interest, liking and values
for something. The results therefore conform with the statement that a person’s likes and
dislikes, perceptions on his or her abilities, interests, and values, influence his or her choice
of occupation [5, 17]. Ginzberg [18] has indicated that the final choice of occupations are
compromises between interest, values, opportunities and limitations in the real world. Naizer
[13] has further indicated that students’ entry into and retention in the scientific talent pool,
is a result of interest and abilities in science and mathematics.
Seventeen per cent FES and 15% FPE were motivated by family members, while 16%
FES and 15% FPE were motivated by non-family members. Consequently, 33% FES and
30% FPE were motivated by people, making people’s influence higher than both natural
curiosity and mathematics/science ability. Those whose fathers were engineers confessed
that their fathers influenced them greatly. One student remarked:
I was strong in mathematics and science, and my father is a mechanical engineer. He
was very supportive and influential, and although my mother is a teacher she put her
support behind my father’s. I have however, chosen to study civil engineering instead
of mechanical engineering because I like structural work.

Godfrey [19], in a study in New Zealand, found that 50% of the female engineering students
studied, had a family member or close friend who was an engineer. Parental influence on

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Fig. 1. Motivation of respondents.
340 E. A. Baryeh, R. Y. Obu, D. L. Lamptey and N. Y. Baryeh

children’s career choices have also been reported by Rice [17] and Amissah [20]. Career
choices, according to Osipow [21] and Naizer [13], are a reflection of strong identification
with the father. Granstam and Sani [22] also noted in studies in Sweden that 56% and 25%
of the female engineering students studied, had fathers who were engineers and brothers who
were studying engineering respectively. Rice [17] also identified parents, peers, school per-
sonnel, intelligence, aptitude, interest, job reward/satisfaction, prestige, sex role concepts as
some of the factors influencing occupational choice.
The influences of status of engineers in society, science/mathematics hobbies and career
awareness were less motivating for both groups, mainly because there is no career guidance
in the secondary schools.
Comparison between both respondent groups using Fisher’s Exact Probability Test did
not indicate any significant difference—at the 0.05 significance level—between the two
groups, regarding how the various factors affected their career choices.

Perceptions

Forty per cent FES and 20% FPS indicated that their perceptions of engineering began in
primary school when they saw technical scenes on television and technicians and mechanics
repairing electrical appliances and cars respectively. These were respondents who had their
primary school education in urban centres. The rest were not aware of engineering until they
got to secondary school. Other sources of awareness in secondary school were the media,
industrial and factory scenes, and field trips to Akosombo Dam and Tema Industrial Sector.
They initially perceived engineering as a masculine domain because they saw mostly
males working in industries, auto shops, construction and dam sites. Although they felt the
engineering field was male dominated, mathematical and more difficult, than most non-
mathematical disciplines, they thought there were many job opportunities in engineering,
and therefore there are some women engineers. They also perceived engineering as being
practical, making life better for people and offering the opportunity of establishing one’s
own firm or company to become independent. They saw engineering as a good paying
discipline and having many areas that are not physically demanding which women can
handle.

Career aspirations

Both FES and FPE had high aspirations. Eighty per cent FES were aiming at jobs with
industry, government establishments and engineering firms, 15% were planning to set up
their own engineering firms or consultancies and 5% were planning to enter research
institutes after their training. From there, they hoped to ascend to management positions.
Surprisingly, none of them aimed at being a lecturer, although they all felt there should be
more female lecturers. This is mainly because the remuneration of lecturers is low. Eight per
cent hoped to do post-graduate studies, while 20% intended to work after the first degree and
get married before deciding on what to do next.
Twenty per cent FPE had already achieved their aim of ascending to management
positions in their respective companies. The rest were aspiring to management positions or
hoping to set up their consultancy or engineering companies within the next few years. The
only FPE in the teaching field was a lecturer in a polytechnic, and she hoped to be the first
female principal of the institution. They all felt their positions matched their qualifications
and experience, and they had not been discriminated against in their promotions. They were
asked, ‘If you can accelerate the attainment of your aspirations by changing jobs would you

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 Ghanaian women and the engineering profession 341

do so?’. Seventy per cent answered in the affirmative, 10% said ‘too much mobility might
conflict with marriage’, 10% said ‘I want to gain more experience in my present job before
moving’ and 10% said ‘I am satisfied with my present job and position’.

Decision time

Eighty four per cent FES and 80% FPE indicated that they took the decision to study
engineering during the latter part of their secondary school education. The rest took the
decision after secondary school when they were doing their national service. Most of them
did not, however, decide on the branch of engineering until they started the first year
programme. At this time they were more mature and familiar with the various branches.
Ginzberg [18] and Grewal [12] have indicated that the choice of career is best made with
maturity of individuals.

Constraints for female engineers

The constraints given by the respondents did not show any significant difference between the
two groups at the 0.05 level. The respondents mentioned the understanding of mathematical
concepts as one of their difficulties. This could partly be due to Odugbesan’s [37] feeling
that some women portray lack of positive attitudes to mathematics and science and some still
believe these are for men.
They experienced discouraging and negative attitudes and unjustified criticisms from
men, friends and colleagues. Some men felt the women made the wrong choice, while some
commented on their lower physical strength. Some of these comments could be due to the
men’s fear of competing with women and finding the women to be doing as well as or better
than them. Kuiper [23] has stressed the attitudes of men in Tanzania as one of the major
constraints in small enterprise development for women.
Generally, the women who attended girls’ schools felt at ease with the men after a few
months of being together with the men. Most of the men became very cooperative and
helpful, while a few of them behaved traditionally. Despite some negative comments and
occasional criticisms from some male students, 90% FES said they were fairly treated and
accepted by most of the male students as equals. Male lecturers also treated them fairly. Two
students commented:

There is nothing about engineering which makes it suit one sex. The engineering field
has many branches from which one can make a choice. Moreover, technology is
advancing, resulting in good management and control systems, so physical strength is
not needed as much in engineering as before.

They felt engineering programmes are sometimes academically and physically demand-
ing. As a result, some male lecturers demonstrated preconceived ideas that the women could
not make it. The inadequate female lecturers was also noted. Only 20% of the students had
female lecturers and they viewed them as role models. This encouraged them to work harder.
The increase in female lecturers will definitely boost up the morale and aspirations of the
students. McWilliams [24] found in New Zealand, for example, that female students liked to
have more women tutors. Brown [25] has also reported the significant improvement in
female enrolment in science and engineering in some American universities as a result of
attending seminars given by women role-models.

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342 E. A. Baryeh, R. Y. Obu, D. L. Lamptey and N. Y. Baryeh

In addition to the above, the FPE’s revealed that it was sometimes difficult combining
their engineering jobs with family and domestic responsibilities, especially when the need to
work overtime and at odd hours arose. The role played by working women in the home is a
contributing factor to their slow advancement in their careers. Ten per cent FPE, however,
commented; ‘There is still a bit of male chauvinism and a few male engineers think we are
rubbing shoulders with them and therefore try to make things difficult for us’.

Community attitude towards women engineers

The FPE’s noted that some people were challenged and inspired by their status, and some
admired them for being engineers. This made them command a lot of respect from some
sectors of the community. Other people looked at them with astonishment because they felt
the women had chosen a field which is masculine. To them the word ‘engineering’ has a
masculine connotation. This created a mixture of inferiority complex and envy in these
people.

Reasons for low participation of women

The respondents indicated that, ignorance of women about the engineering career, gender
stereotyping about what society deems to be male or female domains, girls’ shying away
from mathematics and science in secondary school because they think they do not have the
brains for these subjects, women feeling that engineering demands a lot of time and brain
work, discouragement from family members, friends and teachers, employers preference for
male workers and a lack of confidence of females in themselves, are the main reasons for the
low enrolment in engineering programmes. Bhatia [26] has commented that most girls hesi-
tate to go in for science, as this makes heavy demands, both in matters of time and effort,
and thus depriving them of other interests and activities. Furthermore, with the additional
duties traditionally expected from girls at home, they are discouraged from aspiring to study
and research of pure sciences [26]. Zietsman and Naidoo [27] also confirmed in South Africa
that girls are less interested in physics and mathematics than boys, and fewer chose to study
them at school and university, which severely restricts their entrance into engineering. Em-
ployers prefer male to female workers because females take maternity leave when they give
birth to babies. Zietsman and Naidoo [27] have also revealed that in South Africa, a female’s
self-assessment of her own ability and performance in physics and mathematics is signifi-
cantly lower than that of men.

Male students’ views

Male students affirmed that engineering can be studied by both males and females who have
the interest and ability, and most of them were pleased to see females enrolled in the School
of Engineering. Eighty per cent of them felt the performance of the females is up to the level
of the males. The rest felt that some of the females did not put in the necessary effort
required by the programmes, especially for practical classes. In addition to the reasons the
female respondents gave for the low enrolment of females in engineering programmes, the
males indicated that few girls satisfy the entry requirements for the engineering programmes,
a female’s lack of physical and emotional stamina that the engineering programme demands,
and a lack of guidance and counselling for students in secondary school also contribute to
the low enrolment. None of the respondents had counselling in secondary school or univer-
sity. Their career awareness came from relatives, friends, the media and visits to industries.

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 Ghanaian women and the engineering profession 343

It is therefore advisable to include counselling in secondary school and university study

programmes. Wallace [28] has stated that the opportunity for young people to discuss their
ideas and vocational choices in a counselling session is particularly important with the
introduction of vocational and technical courses for 14–18 year group. Counselling is also
necessary due to the increased importance placed on the breaking down of sex-stereotyped
attitudes and choices by young people. Twenty per cent FPE mentioned that they had
counselling on one occasion in their final year from some women in management positions
who briefed them, among other things, on women engineers. They confessed that they
benefited from the counselling and their morales and confidence were boosted up. When
asked if they will be prepared to give talks to secondary school girls on engineering, they all
answered positively. The male students also indicated that the females often relied on their
male counterparts in most of the practical aspects of the programme, and they easily became
desperate when faced with any hardships or failure. This supports the AAMT’s [29] state-
ment that girls are more likely to attribute their success to hard work and their failures to
lack of ability, while boys are more likely to believe their successes are due to ability and
their failures to lack of effort or external factors such as the difficulty of the work.
From the above points, it seems the males regarded the females as a weaker sex and
therefore relieved them from works which demanded physical strength. This could, however,
affect their future work performance and should therefore not be encouraged.

Views of engineering lecturers

All the lecturers interviewed were not happy about the low enrolment of female students in
the School of Engineering. They revealed that the target of the School was to enrol 10% of
the total female population in the university. The School however, did not meet this target,
although the entry requirement for females was lower than that of males. They confirmed all
the reasons given above as contributing towards the low female enrolment in the School. In
addition they said men were more inquisitive and more adventurous about engineering than
women.
The lecturers affirmed that the females perform as well as the males. They noted, how-
ever, that some females had a weaker background in mathematics and science so they faced
more difficulties with the mathematical aspects of the programmes. This could partly be due
to the lower entry requirements for females. Another comment was that the females were
often not prepared for the mathematical and physical practical work although they were
theoretically good in other aspects, but they improved with time. They felt some of the
females had a preconceived idea that engineering is difficult and this had some adverse
effects on them. Despite these, no female had ever dropped out of the programme as a result
of poor performance, which is an indication that women can stand the rigours of the pro-
grammes.

SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE THE PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN

The four groups of respondents suggested that girls should be encouraged at an early age to
develop a liking for mathematics and science which are the tools for engineering. This must
start from primary school and intensified in secondary school. They recommended that more
girls must be encouraged to study science and mathematics in secondary school, and that
career guidance and counselling units should be established in secondary schools to explain
to female students the options available to them in the universities, and emphasize that girls

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344 E. A. Baryeh, R. Y. Obu, D. L. Lamptey and N. Y. Baryeh

can enter into the traditionally male dominated careers. Girls must know through counselling
that engineering is not an impediment to marriage. Furthermore, they felt that the ‘science
and mathematics clinics’ for secondary school girls organized by the government should
continue and be intensified.
They advised that women should be encouraged to get rid of the notion that engineering
is too difficult and is a sole preserve for men. Women, they felt, should be exposed to
engineering through seminars by women role models, and audio-visual tapes on women
engineers working in the field. Field trips to engineering firms should be organized for
secondary school girls to interest them in engineering, and brilliant girls from poor families
who wish to study engineering should be aided financially. Women must be encouraged to
know their potential. They should be encouraged not to attribute their failure to their femi-
ninity or lack of ability. They should be encouraged to think positive. Finally, they suggested
that male engineers must be tolerant and welcome their female counterparts.
In addition to the above, the authors suggest that women must be encouraged to recognise
their potential in the engineering field; girls must be introduced to hobbies in science and
mathematics in secondary school, and such hobbies should include the dismantling and
assembling of appliances and equipment to give them a hands-on experience and interest in
technology, and an execution of technical project works; secondary school girls who perform
excellently in mathematics and science must be given some incentives to encourage them to
continue doing well, because this is likely to encourage them to study engineering.
The link between the universities/other technical training institutes, and the engineering
job market, should be enforced to expose women to engineering jobs. Society must be
educated through the media about the role women can play in the development of the
country and the fact that no career is the sole preservative of males or females. Men must be
encouraged and educated to accept women in male dominated fields, while boys and girls
must be educated and encouraged to do domestic chores together without defining any
special roles for any of them. Men must be educated and encouraged to share family and
domestic responsibilities with women. To stir the interest of girls, the teaching of science
and mathematics should involve the use of female interests and everyday life in the context
of girls and society. Girls must be taught separately, in addition to being taught together with
boys. Females must be physically and emotionally prepared in secondary school for engi-
neering before entering university. Finally, salaries and working conditions of lecturers must
be improved to attract more female engineering lecturers, and more scholarships must be
made available to females willing to do further training in engineering in order to lecture.

CONCLUSION

The study has revealed that the number of women studying and practising engineering in
Ghana is very low compared to their demographic percentage and high commercial activi-
ties. This situation is due to the lack of counselling in secondary schools, difficulties in
understanding mathematical concepts, criticism and discouragement from people, and a low
number of female lecturers, among others. Both male and female engineering students, as
well as female practising engineers and lecturers, support the idea of increasing the female
enrolment in engineering programmes in the country. It was revealed that natural curiosity,
mathematics and science ability and influence from family and non-family members were
the major motivating factors for women student and practising engineers. A number of

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 Ghanaian women and the engineering profession 345

suggestions have been made by the respondents and authors to motivate more women in
Ghana to enter the engineering field.

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