Girls'Day – Future Prospects for Girls

Every year technical enterprises, enterprises with technical departments and technical training facilities, universities, and research centres are invited to organise an open day for girls – Girls'Day. Girls'Day – 'Future Prospects for Girls' initiated a large campaign in which a wide range of professions and activities is presented to girls of 10 years upwards. The vocational choices of girls are influenced in a very positive way. For companies, Girls'Day has evolved as an important instrument of their recruitment policy.

Girls'Day encourages the surroundings of the young women – i.e. families, school, media and employers – to participate in the campaign and change their common attitudes towards vocational orientation. Information material, an all-embracing interactive website and an individual advisory service provide support for all target groups. The campaign includes a scientific evaluation.

Due to the nationwide focus and the uniform date, Girls'Day concentrates regional limited individual initiatives and achieves a unique broad effect. It is considered the largest career orientation project for female students. Girls'Day – 'Future Prospects for Girls' is funded by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research, the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth.

Network

• Companies and organizations are participating with around 15,000 events annually for about 2.4 million girls yet.
• A network of more than 330 Girls'Day working groups – regional alliances of assets from chambers, employer associations, trade unions, equality bodies, employment agencies and many other facilities – is committed to the girls' future.

Girls'Day is effective

In recent years there has been a significant increase in female professionals in technical fields. Now the growth in employment of women is stronger than that of men in almost all scientific and technical professions.

Scientific evaluation

More than 94 percent of the girls assess Girls'Day as 'good' or 'very good'. 68 percent got to know professions on Girls'Day in which they are interested. 42 percent of the girls can imagine to do an internship or training in the organisation they visited.

On Girls'Day 46 percent of the participating organisations get enquiries for internships and apprenticeships. For more than one in five companies these lead to an employment of female candidates. 

The evaluation shows an opening for gender-specific aspects of vocational orientation and an increased awareness of gender mainstreaming in companies and schools which have taken part several times. Girls'Day has a positive influence on the image of technology related professions and yields realistic estimations on behalf of employment outlook, job contents, and basic conditions Scientific publication of evaluation results and further publications in form of scientific papers.

International Girls'Day

Meanwhile, Girls'Day or similar actions take place in more than twenty different countries. Apart from Germany, in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kosovo, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland. In Asia, Girls’Day is organised in Kyrgyzstan, Japan, South Korea, Lebanon and Mongolia. In Africa, the event has been held in Ethiopia and Egypt since 2014 and in Benin since 2018. The first Girls’Day was held in Australia in 2018. On the South American continent, the first Girls’Day was held in Mexico in 2020. The ‘Girls in ICT Day‘ project was established in 2011 to direct girls‘ attention to the IT professions worldwide. 

Support and cooperation

The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, and supported by the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA), the German Trade Union Federation (DGB), the Federal employment Agency (BA), the German Industry and Commerce (Chambers), the Federation of German Industries (BDI), the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts (ZDH), the Federal Parent Council (BER) and the Initiative D21. The Standing Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK) and the Conference of Ministers of Gender Equality (GFMK) are represented as a permanent guest in the steering group.