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The Australasian Railway Association (ARA) recently released its three-year Women in Rail strategy aimed at increasing female participation in the industry to help ensure its long-term sustainability.

ARA CEO and our Speaker Bureau member, Caroline Wilkie, said while the industry has seen recent improvements in gender diversity, there is more work to do to attract, retain and develop women in rail.

“The ARA’s Women in Rail Strategy aims to support the continued increase in female representation in the industry. With a strong $154 billion pipeline of investment over the next 15 years, this is more important than ever to ensure a sustainable future for rail,” Ms Wilkie said.

National Women in Transport welcomes the Women in Rail Strategy that outlines several initiatives from 2023 – 2026 based on the following four areas:

• Industry Knowledge: Measure success and understand the issues
• Organisation Impact: Encourage inclusive and respectful workplaces
• Professional Development: Grow capacity and capability of women in rail
• Promote Rail to Women: Increase female participation in rail

A lack of gender diversity in its workforce and leadership is undermining the transport sector's net zero carbon targets, warns a 2022 report by the International Transport Forum (ITF), supported by the FIA Foundation. 

The study examines the linkages between gender equality, transport and climate change to better understand the development of policies that can achieve both gender equality and decarbonising transport goals by 2050.   

The report identified that a consistent approach to incorporating a gender dimension into decarbonising transport policies for users and improving the gender balance in the transport workforce would have a significant impact. It sets out four groups of 'guiding principles': 

• Capacity building, knowledge management and communication. 

• Gender balance, participation and women's leadership. 

• Implementation. 

• Monitoring and reporting. 

Specific actions accompany each principle for countries and companies to improve gender equality and decarbonising transport measures simultaneously.  

This report was launched during a special webinar with a panel of experts.

In November 2021, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications (now the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts), commissioned iMOVE and Wayfinder to complete a literature review of the barriers to women entering and progressing in transport roles and to undertake a stocktake of initiatives supporting women in the transport industry (aviation, maritime, rail and road).  

The report considers the challenges to gender equity at individual, behavioural, organisational, and system-wide levels. It acknowledges that women are not a homogenous group. Each individual is the sum of intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics, and they face different challenges at different stages of their careers. Also relevant is the shift in workforce requirements, driven by the evolving needs of the sector and shaped by prevailing social trends such as the COVID pandemic, enabling technologies and an increased focus on corporate social responsibility. Visit iMove's website to read more and download the full report. 

The Australasian Railway Association (ARA) released its 2020-21 Gender Diversity report in early 2022. The report found that there has been a 2% rise in female participation in the rail workforce compared to 2018-19. Although more women are advancing their careers in rail, more action is needed to support stronger female participation in the industry.  

Women now make up 24% of the rail workforce, although the report also found that two key challenges to overcome for future growth are: 

• Availability of skilled or qualified female candidates for roles.

• Attraction of females into rail apprenticeships, rail training or the rail sector. 

Read the full report to learn more and access case studies on gender diversity in rail.