Challenging Boundaries to ‘Employability’: Women Apprentices in a Non-Traditional Occupation

Abstract

This article is based on a case study of women apprentices and workers in a ‘non-traditional’ occupation for women, engineering construction. The article argues that the concept of ‘employability’ is not gender neutral, and that gendered assumptions about who is and is not ‘employable’ for particular work can disadvantage women seeking training and work in non-traditional industries or dissuade them from applying to do so. Approaches to employability which emphasise individual attributes underplay the significance of gender inequalities and wider discourses of gender.