According to a study I have read, a greater percentage of women than men prioritize time off for family/childcare and job security. In general, being an airline pilot runs counter to these desires. We all know that many days are spent out of town for training and layovers. On top of that, aviation has to be one of the worst careers in terms of job security with mass layoffs with every recession and this one by far the worst.

As far as I'm concerned, all these groups promoting airline careers have done them a huge disservice with a significant amount of them now having huge financial hits. How many of these groups targeting women told them that you could expect layoffs/career stagnation every ten years or so.

I would recommend airline flying to anyone who understands the reality of this business but is willing to accept that risk due to their desire for that kind of job. But if job stability overrides everything else...stay far away from an aviation career.

And the nice thing is, as a person with a successful career in a stable industry, you will have money to fly for fun when you want to.

I hope the people from 12 years ago read this.

man, talk about resurrecting the dead here.

Haha, 12 years later I will provide an update on my previous comments...

Most of the women I knew when we were younger did ultimately have kids, and many of those either dropped out or took a significant career delay for the kids. The top of the FO list at my old regional base is stacked with moms who are taking an 18-year career timeout and just need the schedule control.

One gutted it out in corporate and ULCC, finally got the dream legacy job, had another kid and took lots of FMLA... maybe that's how to do it, but then you have the bio clock issue (she started pretty young). She'll probably have a few more years off now (fortunately hubby flies cargo).

A lot of the promotion is virtue signaling. You're right that most women do value job security and time for childcare than men, something an airline career doesn't really offer. This is why there aren't as many women in senior management positions due to the aversion to dedicating your life to work. Plenty of high paying secure jobs (particularly in healthcare) that you see women dominate.

Rickair -

I was reading the thread from the beginning and my initial thought of your response when you mentioned your female friends was “....and they don’t want any“, was ...... we’ll see how long that lasts.
Seen the sideshow too many times throughout my career.
Funny to see you update with new info.

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Regional airline perspective
 

I haven't read the replies above. Just saw OP's question, and thought I'd give the view from a new airline pilot. I took a job at a regional airline in August.

Counting my initial class and the class before and after, there were 40 new first officers, and 5 of them were women. All the women made it through and got qualified. I had a look at the seniority list for my base, and looking over the 20 FO's immediately above me on the list, 3 are women. So I think around 10-12% of the pilots at regional airlines are women. Some came from charter/freight jobs and some came from flight instructing.

Since hitting the line, I have flown with about a dozen captains, 2 of whom were women. They seemed happy with the career. One has kids at home and one doesn't. My airline has five bases (domiciles) and each has a chief pilot. Two of the five Chief Pilots are female.

So although everyone has heard horror stories of grouchy old captains who behaved poorly toward a female FO, these days I think everyone has worked with enough female pilots that even the oldest and grouchiest has gotten used to it and won't be unpleasant. Over the next five years, the number of female captains will be closer to 10% (at the regionals at least; and ten years from now at the majors as well) so it should be a complete non-issue.

There are probably facebook groups of female airline pilots where you could ask about their experiences.

One good thing about an airline pilot career is that, once you are hired, there is very little opportunity for you to be discriminated against for race, sex, orientation, etc. My previous career was in business, and there, promotions, raises, etc. are subjective (the bosses give promotions and raises to who they want / who they think are the best). This means that a boss who thinks less of the female employees can (deliberately or unknowingly) slight people's careers based on their personal characteristics. But union airline pilots all move upwards at exactly the same rate, regardless of age/sex/race/where they live/what college they went to. You will get the same raises every year as your counterparts, and provided you don't screw up (and most don't), you will become a captain at the same time as everyone else in your initial class.