Women have been historically underrepresented in both craft and management positions in the U.S. rail industry. Identified as one of the industry’s top workforce challenges, the present study provides a more detailed view of gender diversity in rail transportation, and how factors such as gender and management status interact to affect perceptions of safety culture in a sample of U.S. short line and regional railroads (Nrailroads = 23, Nrailroaders = 1,239). The results suggested that women tended to be older than men, have more education, and were more likely to be employed at larger organizations. Despite being employed in the railroad industry for fewer years than men, women in our sample were also more likely to be managers. With regard to safety culture, managers had more positive perceptions than craft employees, and female craft employees had more positive perceptions than male craft employees. Implications for the industry and avenues for future research and implementation are discussed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.