Gender Parity
There were two main ways in which our organization sought to address unemployment and underemployment among women in the Thai labour market.
Offer targeted support services in existing programs: Currently, my organization designs and delivers bootcamps which teach unemployed people coding skills and behavioral skills necessary to find meaningful work as software developers. The majority of our learners (~70%) are men. I learned quickly that applying what's been done in the US and similar countries in Thailand wouldn't be easy - Thailand's labour market is wholly unique and would require solutions that take this context into account. There were two gender-related pieces of context that stood out. The first is that gender representation varies greatly by industry. While the tech industry is male dominated, women make up ~60% of finance and consulting industries' workforces. The second insight is that Thai companies don't have DEI efforts in the same way that many companies in the US do. In light of these realities, my organization took a more individual-based approach to recruiting and supporting women in our tech program. For example, when we see that a female applicant has started but not finished her application, we reach out and ask why or if there's anything we can do to support them. We also offer specific mentorship opportunities to our female learners, from both program staff and industry professionals.
Design programs specifically targeting women: the second way in which we are specifically addressing unemployment among females is creating new bootcamps. There are two ongoing efforts related to this. The first is a project scoping and design effort for our healthcare program, which we expect to have direct impact on women whose jobs have been displaced by COVID (e.g., in the tourism / service industry). We are still in the process of designing curriculum and identifying employer partners to work with. The second project directly targets single mothers. We've conducted extensive research in order to select a field that we should focus on - a field that enables upward economic mobility while also offering enough support for single mothers. We're currently narrowing in on digital marketing or adjacent fields to focus on.
