International organization's latest global survey Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO) on the Status of Licensed Aviation Personnel by Gender shows that the share of female pilots, air traffic controllers and maintenance personnel has increased from 4.5 percent in 2016 to 4.9 percent in 2021.
The share of female pilots in service has increased worldwide from 3.6% to 4%. The largest growth is observed in the Asia-Pacific region and the Caribbean. North America has the highest rates in the world — 4.6% of female pilots, followed by Africa and Europe with 4.1% and 4% respectively.
The share of female aircraft maintenance engineers and technicians has risen from 2.7% to 3% worldwide, with growth in all regions except the Middle East and Africa. The largest growth in this area was once again recorded in the Latin America/Caribbean and Asia-Pacific regions, where the Asia-Pacific region also has the highest proportion of female licensed engineers and aircraft maintenance technicians in the world —4, 4%.
The number of female air traffic controllers has remained stable globally at around 20.6%, with increases in Latin America/Caribbean and the Middle East. The Latin America region has the highest percentage of female controllers — 31.8%, followed by Europe at 21.4%.
Countries' access to new statistics and awareness of the status quo is expected to lead to policies that close the still significant gender gap in aviation.
Additional gender-disaggregated data and analytics will be published by the United Nations aviation agency as part of its Global Aviation Gender Summit 2023, which will be held 5-7 July 2023 in Madrid, Spain.