COVID Upsets the Canadian Female Pilot Population Uninterrupted Growth from 4.79% in 1980 to 8.15% in 2020
Working closely with Transport Canada for a decade, the Institute for Women of Aviation Worldwide (iWOAW) has compiled a research paper titled ‘What Four Decades of Canadian Statistics Reveal about Women Progress in Aviation’. The content is now available to the public on iWOAW.org.
Published statistics about the state of Canadian women progress in the male-dominated sectors of the air and space industry are routinely erroneous. Most often, U.S. data replaces Canadian facts.
The facts are that Canadian women lead the American continent (from the North Pole to the South Pole) in both numbers (adjusted for country population) and percentages.
Without reliable documentation and numbers, speaking about women advancement can only be rhetoric. As the world prepares to celebrate the 11th annual Women Of Aviation Worldwide Week (March 8-14, 2021), governments and industry stakeholders continue to keep numbers out of public viewing.
111 years after Raymonde de Laroche became the world’s first woman to hold a pilot licence, the International Civil Aviation Organization is yet to demand that its member countries who issue aviation personnel licences and gather the data, share it. Without global data, accountability at national level is non-existent. This acts as a barrier to progress.
“It is critical to have accurate numbers, however embarrassing they may be,” says Mireille Goyer, Founder and President of the Institute for Women Of Aviation Worldwide. “Without them, we cannot assess progress.”
Pre-Covid Canadian numbers highlight the tangible impact of the Institute’s outreach initiative. To date, thousands of Canadian aviation enthusiasts, pilots, and stakeholders across the country have given 53,464 Canadian women and girls an opportunity to discover everything aviation, hands-on, and taken 21,587 of them on their first small aircraft flight during Women Of Aviation Worldwide Week.
“There has been an increased awareness and interest by girls/women to enter the aviation field, says Colette Morin, a flight school owner in Squamish, BC who is getting ready to hold her 10th Women Of Aviation Week event. “Glacier Air currently has a 17% female student population overall. 20% of our commercial students are female.”
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