On March 11 of the current year, the Chevron company office in Almaty hosted a discussion session “Leadership. Career. Success” with the participation of women from different industries, as well as employees and partners of the company. As part of this session, participants discussed volunteering, women’s leadership and professional development.
Executive Director of KAZENERGY Association for Human Capital Development L. Akhmurzina was invited to participate as a speaker. She delivered a presentation of the major findings of the research “Role of Women in Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan”.
The main objective of the research is to generate information on the employment of women in the Kazakhstan energy sector. The research includes the periods from 2016 to Q2 2019. The research involved 37 companies with over 55 thousand employees.
During the period under review 2016-2019, 13,901 women and 42,055 men were employed in the energy companies included in the survey sample, which means that the average share of women in total employment is 24%.
Management. The number of men in management positions (as members of the Boards of Directors, top managers or “functional” middle-rank managers) in 2018 was 6,577, whereas a total of 1,592 women held similar positions, equivalent to 19%.
Education. According to the poll, women in the industry have a higher level of education compared to men. A total of 64% of all women employed by the surveyed companies have a postgraduate education (at Master’s, PhD, MBA or similar level of education), compared to 48% of all employed men.
Production. In 2018, the number of women was only 19% of technical and production employees, 31% of technical employees classified as “professional specialists”
1 (3,209 out of 10,502 employees) and 24% of “professional technicians” (938 out of 3,957 employees). The analysis of the number of women and men in the production workforce shows a higher employment rate of women in technical positions of higher qualification. More than half of all women in technical and production positions are “professional specialists” or “professional technicians”.
Consequently, the general trends demonstrate the under-representation of the labor mix and the hidden underemployed capacity of women in the industry.
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[1] This category includes highly qualified specialists with higher education, such as engineers (-geophysicists, -chemists or -electricians).
