Low Women Sea Fearers in Maritime Industry in Relation to the Blue Economy in Tanzania
Abstract
The reality of a global gender imbalance in the maritime industry as sea fearers is undeniable whole the world particularly in Africa as an example. However, it is even more profound in the traditionally male-dominated maritime industry against women in Tanzania particularly the area of sea farers. Although the maritime industry has adopted initiatives towards closing the existing gender gap, the integration of women into the maritime industry in the area of sea farers has been at a sluggish rate due to various impediments. Therefore, the paper will address critically on why women participation in sea farers in Tanzania is still limited despite the efforts done by the government and some Maritime industry stakeholders to raise the number of women participation in this area. The paper will also trace the issue of the gender imbalance to its historical roots but also to highlight the current impediments and challenges unique to the maritime industry towards achieving gender equality in its workforce. Using a review of literature, this paper will also bring forward the various initiatives put in place to facilitate the integration of women into the maritime sector and suggests recommendations for the same. The paper will use descriptive research design to describe some reasons which hinders women participation in the area of sea farers. The data were collected from the field into two phases: In the first phase, qualitative data on low limited number of women participation in sea farers, the challenges unique contributing to a limited number of women in sea farers, and how to overcome. The paper acknowledges that women are a growing force and there is a need to close the gender gap is widely accepted. However, even though many initiatives have led to an increase of female presence, there is room for further efforts to support women for increasing number of sea farers as an important sector in maritime industry because they are the part and parcel of
