This study aims to reveal that the main barrier to fostering female marine officers lies in the recruitment of shipping companies and the imbalance of gender ratios in education and training of marine officer training institutions. In the maritime ind...
This study aims to reveal that the main barrier to fostering female marine officers lies in the recruitment of shipping companies and the imbalance of gender ratios in education and training of marine officer training institutions. In the maritime industry, gender imbalance is rooted in a long-standing stereotype of gender roles. Moreover, from a legal point of view, gender imbalance in recruitment and promotion is interpreted as ambiguous indirect discrimination, so social awareness as well as legal measures remain in place.
In the case of Korea Maritime University, considering the student recruitment ratio, practice T.O., and employment ratio of shipping companies, female students design different careers from male students, which adversely affects future career development. Problems such as the absence of female role models, differences in academic attitudes of male and female students, and representation of minority female students should be improved through hybridization. In particular, the leading subject for hybridization should be the shipping companies in that the gender imbalance of the shipping companies leads to that of training educational institutions. At the practical level, a step-by-step long-term goal is needed to enable a mixed job with more than 30% of women in the marine officer job. Marine officer job is benign, not male, and hybridization will be the minimum starting point for ‘just marine officers’.
Now, the competence of male and female students aiming to become marine officers depends not on the gender difference but on their ability. Marine officer training educational institutions need to cultivate excellent human resources without discrimination and establish a suitable selection system together with shipping companies.