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MINERALS INDUSTRY EDUCATION AND TRAINING II

It is also interesting to study the demographics of delegates to the same
conference series over time; to this end Figure 5 shows the proportion
of female delegates attending Flotation ’03, ’07 and ’15. A point to note
is that the 2003 conference was held in Helsinki, while 2007 and 2015
were held in Cape Town. Consequently, in 2003, 65% of delegates were
European (with only 5.5% European female delegates from industry),
while in 2007, 47% of delegates were African. In spite of this change of
location, it can be seen that while the proportion of female academics has
increased over time, from 14.3% in 2003 to 27.1% in 2015, the attendance
of industry women has remained broadly constant at around 14.5% (with
11% in 2003). Overall this results in an increase in female delegates from
12.5% in 2003 to 18.9% in 2015.

The data suggest, therefore, that there has been a general increase in
the proportion of women in mineral processing, specifically flotation,
in recent years in academia, but that the numbers in industry remain
relatively constant, at 14.5%. This number correlates well with the lower
estimate of women graduating with mineral processing degrees that
enter industry (13.9%).

Figure 5: Proportion of female delegates attending MEI’s Flotation
’03, ’07 and ’15 conferences

30%
25%
% Female attendees 15%
20%

10%
5%

0%
2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
%Female %Female Academic %Female Industry

Meeting the Challenges of a
162 Section 4
Changing World