Gender Equality in Mining Sector Well Below National Average

It was the mid-90s when Angelina Mehta, a senior adviser at Paradigm Capital and founding member of the Canadian chapter of Women in Mining, completed her degree in mining engineering and set out to make a name for herself in the mining sector. She had probably spent next to no time thinking about how being a woman would hinder her ability, however she came face-to-face with that very concept when she tried to go underground at a gold mine in the Northern Abitibi region.

While her male counterparts and miners were in the men’s dry getting outfitted for the trip beneath the earth, Mehta had to wait outside, a memory she recounted during a panel discussion about the need for gender diversity in the mining sector at the Mining Investment North America conference held last week in Toronto.

“There was no dry for women so I had to hang outside the male dry, which was traumatic for a young woman to say the least, to wait for somebody to bring me a lamp,” Mehta recounted. “And there was no place to shower at the actual headframe, I had to go and take my shower at the mill.”

Fellow panelist, and Director of Women in Mining, Christine Petch, remembered her own struggles as a female geologist in the mining space during the 80s.

“I’ll be completely blunt, usually women of my generation, the only way you were going to move forward in your career is if you chose to not have children or if you had a very supportive spouse that stayed at home to take care of the children; or if you had a family that could look after your children for you and that was pretty much it,” Petch told the mining investment audience. “I’m very happy to say I have quite a few friends that are about 10 years younger than me that are definitely making it work in a much better way.”

While there seems to be a push towards gender equality in the mining sector today, there is still a long way to go to reach the 50/50 split the Prime Minister and other government officials are targeting in the business sector.

In fact, according to a recent study conducted by the Conference Board of Canada, women represent only 14 percent of the sector, which is a year-over-year increase, but still dramatically below the national average, of 47.4 percent.

Representation isn’t the only area where equality needs to be addressed either. The study showed that the wage gap within the sector sits at a staggering 32 percent, again greater than the national average of 21 percent.

“We tend to be a science, logic-based industry and the perception has been that we’ve achieved equality and women could make it. But that’s why we had to do an industry specific study—to show that we were not breaking the barriers, we were not getting in, and attention had to be applied to this issue,” MaryAnn Mihychuk, president of Women in Mining Canada, told the Canadian Business Journal following the study release.

Women in the mining space isn’t just a North American topic either. At this year’s World Congress Mining 2018 held in Kazakhstan, Melinda Moore from the UK chapter of Women in Mining addressed the need for women to be present and included in all areas of the mining space from the mine floor to the executive board room.

“The fix to the barriers that females face is easy, support, inspire, develop and sponsor women in the industry,” she told the mining-focused crowd.

“It begins at the top, it must be implemented and driven across a company’s entire DNA. In every corner of every mine, every boardroom, every meeting, right down to a mine site— there has to be this shared approach to diversity and women,” she added.

While larger mining companies have led the way towards gender diversity— Anglo American’s  (LSE:AAL) new CEO is Cynthia Carol, and the head of legal and external affairs at Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO, NYSE:RIO, LSE:RIO) is Deborah Valentine—but two executives is a far cry from 50/50 representation. Junior miners also need to heed the call for more gender equality in their space as well.

As the assumption that mining is labor intensive work that women don’t want to do is replaced by the reality of a sector rapidly evolving and embracing new technologically driven ways to do business, many expect the number of women in the space to grow.

“Everyone can help the pipeline challenge. Support the women around you, support them with leadership, with mentoring, with inspiration. Make them role models, show them female role models,” Moore concluded.

Women in Mining is currently looking for the top 100 global inspirational women in mining to honor their work and achievements. Nominations will be open until August 15, women from around the world who are involved in any aspect of the mining sector are eligible.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Georgia Williams, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.