In a world that is still recovering from social inequalities in terms of men’s and women’s roles, the trucking industry can be declared to show considerable improvement. Truck drivers are categorized into a framed behavior based on the activities that they perform. Although the cargo and the customer might change, their functions always revolve around driving and loading and unloading the truck. Therefore, a specific image of a “truck driver” was expected. When it is expected that a man will be driving and a woman appears, a breach in the social fabric ensues. Nevertheless, according to the Wall Street Journal, the proportion of female truck drivers between 2010 and 2018 has increased by 68 percent (Roca and Holger). Therefore, it can be suggested that society is headed for a new dawn of gender equity, as evidenced by increasing their presence in the male-dominated trucking environment.
In the present century, this job is not considered to be “nominally” open to women. The trucking industry is characterized to have a high driver turnover rate of about 87 percent (Wade). Therefore, fleeting companies are struggling to find and keep the drivers that they have. Women are a strong potential talent pool. While they constitute 47 percent of the American workforce, only 7.9 percent of the truck drivers are women in an industry (Wade). Companies are increasingly being aware of the benefits associated with having women drivers. For instance, it has been established that they are less likely to be involved in crashes (Lewis). They also are easier to train, take better care of equipment, and possess better paperwork and customer service skills. Most importantly, there is no gender pay difference among drivers. All these before-mentioned factors are geared towards promoting women to enter the industry. For those lacking higher education certificates, truck driving provides greater stability and better benefits than other jobs, such as home health and food service aides.
In conclusion, for an initially strongly stereotyped field of work, which is truck driving, women have gone against expectations and proved themselves as worthwhile as the men. As the world continues to evolve, their representation is expected to rise. This is because it has been established that women have advantages over their male counterparts in areas such as safety, paperwork skills, and equipment handling.
Works Cited
Lewis, Liz. “Women in Trucking: How They’re Disrupting the Industry.” Indeed. Web.
Roca, Cristina, and Dieter Holger. “Drawn by the Salary, Women Flock to Trucking.” The Wall Street Journal. Web.
Wade. Michele. “Top Strategies for Attracting and Retaining Qualified Drivers.” Women In Trucking. Web.