Studying Gender, Age & Interest in the Flexographic & Graphics Industries

In what was once a male-dominated educational endeavor, there appears to have been an explosion of females entering graphic communications programs at technical colleges, universities and trade schools across North America over recent years. Yet casual observation at industry events, plant tours and suppliers seems to show the same ratio of male to female is not reflected in the workplace, nor do the ages of these “faces” seem to be proportionally younger either.

Over the course of eight months, I conducted four separate surveys with the goal of gathering data to try to compare the current state of the graphics industry to its possible future, in terms of gender, age and interest in printing as a career. Those surveyed included: educators in traditional graphics programs, current students enrolled in Clemson University’s Graphic Communications program, alumni of Clemson’s program and the general FTA membership. The questions were geared to those specific groups.

In the surveys, I tried to answer the following:

  • Are there in fact more females enrolled in graphic programs than 10 years ago?
  • Are female graduates entering the field or are they opting out and pursuing careers in non-related industries? Is this true for males as well? If so, why?
  • Are there consistent factors causing young professionals to leave the industry?
  • And finally, I asked the “bottomline” question: Can we make graphics—and particularly the flexographic industry—a place where young people want to not just stay, but thrive?

Before I go any further, I want to clearly state that although the only students and alumni surveyed were from Clemson, I did poll fellow educators to ask if they were seeing the same trends this survey showed, and there was strong agreement with the results at these schools as well, indicating this is not just a Clemson-isolated phenomenon, but the current state of graphics education across North America.

Examining Gender in Graphic Communications Programs

Drilling down to the first question, and the initial reason I sent out the survey: to garner information on gender distribution and particularly if the number of women was indeed increasing in the field. Thirty-nine schools responded to the survey, out of 52 contacted. The question asked: “Over the past 10 years, have you seen a shift in the number of females enrolled in your program?” Overall, educators indicated there has certainly been a shift toward more women in their programs. This shift was more dramatic in four-year programs and less so in high schools, but seemed equally distributed in two-year programs. Nevertheless, the causal observation bore out to indeed be the trend.

How True Is the Following Statement: Over the Past 10 Years, There Has Been a Shift in the Number of Females Enrolled in Your Program.

Taking this overall trend of more females to males in educational programs, I first determined the specific gender breakdown within Clemson’s Graphic Communications program from freshmen through graduate students revealing a 79 percent female to 21 percent male distribution. I also looked at the career aspirations of these young adults. Surveys were conducted at all class levels.

Next, a two-part question was posed. The first part asked: “When you declared yourself a graphics major, did you intend to work in the print industry?” Overwhelmingly, the answer was, “no.” This result could be easily attributed to first-year students “not committing” to any area; how many freshmen really know what they want to do when they graduate?

Viewing the results from the second part of this question—“Do you intend to enter the printing industry after graduation?”—the results were, overall, mixed. This led me to look at just the third- and fourth-year students to see if the data would reveal a clearer answer. I believed these students would have a better idea of their intended career path after additional studies and Clemson’s two required industry internships.

Gender Distribution at Clemson University’s Graphic Communications Program

However, after analyzing the survey results for just students in their third and fourth year of the program, I found of the 80 young women meeting that criteria, only 13 were definitely interested in print as a career. Of the 26 young men surveyed, only six expressed a definite interest in print. Combining both genders, only 18 percent of third- and fourth-year students said they are interested in going into print.

Comparing Former & Current Graphic Communications Students

The next question was how that information would correlate to past graduates of the Graphic Communications program.

This survey segment was sent to all alumni who graduated as far back as 1981 to as recently as August 2016. Again, I asked the same questions, starting with the intent to work in print from the outset of their college career and once again as they drew closer to graduation.

As the charts on the next page indicate, you can immediately see two major differences between the current graphics students and the alumni of the program. Staring with gender distribution, the alumni group reflected an overall total of 60 percent male to 40 percent female. When breaking down the gender distribution by decade, from the early 1980s to 2016, this distribution can be seen to slowly shift from male to female. And in terms of industry intentions upon graduation, alumni stated they were either neutral or positive about going into print at the beginning of their college careers and did, in fact, overwhelmingly pursue a career in print after graduation.