G. Facts and Numbers

Statistics: Women and Work
Handout 137

1. Graphing: The work women do

* Give learners "Statistics: Women and Work" (page 137) and look at Part A.

* Discuss what jobs a person might do in each category.

  • Do you know anyone who does that job?
  • Have you seen any woman doing that job?

* Choose five or six of these professions and make a bar graph showing how women's participation has changed.

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As an alternative to bar graphs, you could make a chart showing 100 women figures for each category. Ask students to shade in the number that shows the percentage of women in each category.

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If your class has worked with percentages, show the professions as part of a pie.

* Make a bar graph showing all the professions for 1989. Put them in order from smallest to largest.

* Make a bar graph showing the four sectors with most participation by women and the four sectors with the lowest participation by women.

2. Graphing: Men's and women's earnings

* Introduce the idea of proportion expressed as "For every (number) in this category, (number) are in the other category." Use the example of a pair of students who have two and four children, respectively. For every one child A has, B has two. Set up some comparisons of pens or books, for example, for every three pens A has, B has two.

* Show the group the figures that compare earnings for men and women in the sales sector. (page 137, Part B)
* Ask the group to talk about why the discrepancies exist.
* Discuss the other categories.
* Ask learners to make a bar graph showing these numbers. Learners may choose to graph only some of these figures.

H. Choosing an Occupation

This section may be relevant only to learners who are actually seeking work.

1. Guided discussion

* Ask learners to talk about jobs they've done and to think about ways they could do that work for pay and/or to consider other different jobs.
* What skills are needed to be a:

secretary plasterer teacher
social worker fire fighter cashier
doctor electrician plumber
bus driver nurse police officer
carpenter veterinarian

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This exercise may be done partially or completely at this point. Depending on the interests of the group, it may be easier for learners to simply list occupations and everything they know about the occupations. They can then proceed to the interest inventory before doing additional research, and conduct that research as their interests become more defined and focused.


* Learners can research these occupations by listing the questions they have about them. They may choose to narrow the focus - omitting some of the occupations listed and perhaps adding others. They may wish to work in pairs or small groups to research occupations of particular interest to them.

Government publications (pamphlets, especially) might be helpful. As well, the group may wish to invite speakers who work in fields of interest to come to talk about them. Obviously, it will be helpful to invite women who are working in those fields to come to speak to the group. If a woman is not available, after a presentation by a man, it would be interesting to ask the group to discuss how or if a woman might have spoken differently about the job that the speaker described.


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