Gender Equality at Work: Tackling Gender Inequality in Senior Leadership in the Automotive Aftermarket Industry

The primary aim of this chapter is to explore what measures companies in the automotive aftermarket are employing to achieve more gender diversity in senior leadership positions. Gender equality in leadership has been stated as a sub-goal of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal number 5, emphasising that businesses have to respond to gender inequalities immediately. To explore what actions the automotive aftermarket is currently taking and what can be improved to alleviate the challenges that women are facing in career advancement, qualitative semi-structured interviews were employed. A sample of 10 female employees in high-ranking positions in different European automotive aftermarket companies yielded findings which show that there is a gender bias in the automotive aftermarket, which might impede career advancement for women. Another main challenge proves to be work–life balance, which shows that increasing job flexibility and female empowerment would support women and enable them to advance to higher positions. Importantly, several companies are already increasing their focus on gender equality by implementing specific diversity policies and mentoring programmes. Despite these initial efforts made by companies, experiences from women in the aftermarket show that there are still significant hurdles which the industry has to overcome.