Women in Aviation: An Interview-Based Analysis of Female Aviators' Entrances Into the Industry
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- February 26, 2019
- Creator
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Bruce, Molly
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Geography
- Abstract
- Since their permitted entrance into the airline industry in 1974, women have remained a very small portion of the commercial aviator workforce. In fact, women are just seven percent of pilots worldwide and just over three percent of U.S. commercial aviators. However, despite this gender divide in a U.S. industry with a reputation for rewarding high-skill performance with high-wage compensation, nearly no literature exists on the topic of women in the aviation sector of the airline industry. In focusing on female captains that have successfully navigated the field, this thesis examines what structural and personal features enabled a sub set of female aviators to persist in a male-dominated industry. In order to undergo this examination, this research calls upon eight interviews with successful female aviators at the major commercial airliner level, pairing it with a literature review on airline deregulation and the feminization of work. This thesis finds that structurally and institutionally, the equitable airline standards applied to both men and women discourages the equal entrance of both genders. On a personal level, the broad themes of support structures, family decisions, financial decisions and opportunity played central roles in each woman’s progress through the field. Further research might incorporate a larger group of women, a group of women at a range of stages in their careers, women who decided not to continue in their initial pursuit of aviation, or men who worked in the industry at the time that women were first admitted to commercial aviation.
- Date of publication
- spring 2016
- Keyword
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Note
- Funding: None
- Advisor
- Havice, Elizabeth
- Degree
- Bachelor of Arts
- Honors level
- Honors
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Extent
- 85
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