A genetic difference in the way the genders think means women are less inclined towards a career in engineering, a major conference on engineering in Ireland will be told today.
According to Dr Paula Trench, a lecturer in engineering at Athlone Institute of Technology (AIT), this means it may be unrealistic to look for equal participation rates among men and women in the sector.
About 17 per cent of engineering graduates here are women.
In an article to be circulated at the conference entitled Creating 21st-century Engineers, Dr Trench will cite British research which shows that "the average female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy, and the average male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems".
The conference is being hosted by the Dublin Institute of Technology, and will be attended by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mr Martin, and business leaders.
Dr Trench is on a career break from AIT, and is pursuing independent research. She says while women who choose a career as an engineer perform just as well as men, other research has shown that "females are far less likely than males to be interested in ohms, carburettors or quarks".
As a result, many women do not want to choose engineering as a career because it emphasises skills more usually associated with the male brain.
Instead they tend to be interested in careers which utilise their "empathetic" skills, such as inter-personal and communication skills.
"To date we have followed a nurture-is-all interpretation, and developed initiatives which could be interpreted as attempts to condition girls towards engineering," Dr Trench says in an article entitled "Can I have my bra back, please?"
"We are not blank slates . . . our genes account for about 50 per cent of our variation, and men and women have in fact got different minds."
Dr Trench said yesterday: "Men on average have more of a natural inclination towards engineering, towards systemising.
"Having different minds does not imply that one is superior to the other. It's a matter of recognising and appreciating the differences."