Young Women’s Experiences of Careers Advice and Guidance in Wales

12th October 2022

Effective career advice and guidance services are vital to ensuring that we tackle the underlying and persistent causes of gender inequality in society.

This research examines how well career advice and guidance services are meeting the needs of young women in Wales.

The report highlights that careers services in Wales need to do more to ensure that young women have the tools they need to make informed decisions about their education and careers and to shape their own future. Currently, too many young women are not receiving the services they want or need.

Frustratingly, many career choices are still shaped by gender stereotypes. This is particularly the case amongst those from lower socio-economic backgrounds and is a major factor in continuing gender segregation in the workplace. In order to tackle gender inequality, we have to ensure that young women are getting the best possible careers advice and guidance, at the right time.

Despite Wales having a strong network of career service providers and professionals who are passionate about providing good careers advice, funding cuts have made it very difficult to provide the support that young women need.

In this report, we set out a number of actions for Welsh Government and careers advice services to support the delivery of services that support all young women in Wales.

Recommendations

Availability of careers support and methods of delivery:  
  1. Welsh Government should increase investment into career education and guidance to:
    • Increase provision and take-up of careers support and guidance in primary schools and secondary schools prior to GCSE options
    • Support engagement with parents, enabling them to provide support to their children as they make education and career decisions
    • Improve provision and take up of post-compulsory education careers services
  2. Hybrid delivery of career services should become the norm, which includes more face-to-face delivery and tailored guidance, increased resources and dedicated space as required
  3. Welsh Government should ensure effective careers support and education in schools by:
    • Providing teachers with the skills and training needed to offer baseline career support and guidance
    • Providing consistent access to dedicated career advisors within schools, who can provide more substantial support to individuals and ensure a comprehensive approach to career and work education and advice within the school
Content of careers advice and guidance:  
  1. Career service providers must ensure they include information on new and emerging industries and ‘green jobs’ in their delivery
  2. Careers Wales should take action to widen access to and improve take up of work experience and work-related education. This will likely require additional funding from Welsh Government and should complement the roll out of the new curriculum and the Careers and Work-Related Experiences (CWRE)
  3. Welsh Government and Careers Wales should work with partners to increase access to mentoring, opportunities for networking and opportunities to meet relatable and diverse role models
  4. Welsh Government should invest in financial advice and education for young people, delivered either via the new curriculum or as part of Careers Wales services
  5. Welsh Government should invest in more targeted interventions that provide careers advice and guidance to women and are designed with women’s needs in mind
Careers services infrastructure and profession:
  1. Careers Wales and representative bodies such as the Career Development Institute (CDI) should work together to create a resource centre for all career providers to access up-to-date information on the labour market, emerging jobs and sectors, and work to bring consistency to the advice and support available
  2. All career providers should make equality and unconscious bias training mandatory for all involved in delivering careers education and advice. This training must focus on achieving equitable outcomes not just equality of opportunity
Perception and understanding of careers services: 
  1. Further research should be undertaken to understand what is causing the significant gap between awareness of careers advice services and engagement with those services
  2. Careers Wales, Welsh Government and career provider industry bodies need to create and communicate a shared definition of what constitutes career advice and guidance to improve the perception and understanding of career services
Read our Young Women’s Experiences of Careers Advice and Guidance in Wales report

Read the executive summary or the full report of the Young Women’s Experiences of Careers Advice and Guidance in Wales report

Report Summary
Other downloads
Adroddiad Llawn
12th Oct 2022
Gender stereotypes still shaping career decisions of young women in Wales
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