According to a 2005 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report, women made up more than 42 percent of the total workforce in the United States. With nearly half of the nation's labor force being filled by women, achieving gender balance within leadership positions in the occupational safety and health industry is an important challenge to ensure the future of the profession. It is, therefore, essential to identify the challenges and opportunities women face as they strive for leadership positions. It is only by recognizing and understanding these issues that the health and safety industry can begin to discover avenues for improving gender balance. As a manager in the safety industry, I have certainly encountered a variety of gender issues and have developed ideas to achieve improved gender balance. In order to investigate this issue beyond the experiences of women in my firm, LJB Inc. contracted the Business Research Group at the University of Dayton to conduct a focus group to bring together women who hold occupational safety and health positions in a variety of organizations-including industry, government, legal and institutional. Although developing ideas for enhancing gender balance was a main goal of the focus group, initial insight into perceptions of gender balance, as well as gender-related challenges and the corresponding responses, provided a necessary foundation for the group's discussions. Participants in this qualitative research study were not selected on a statistical basis, so the information provided here should be valued for its insightfulness, but should not be generalized to the population.
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