Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing

Some 52.6% of the 1,580 applications received to cover the public-sector jobs as assistant gardeners with Parks and Gardens came from women, representing success for the City Council campaign launched to promote women’s participation in this recruitment process.

The Municipal Institute of Parks and Gardens has been working for months to promote women’s access to its ranks, as the organisation is currently staffed by 80% men and just 20% women. Because of this, and coinciding with the promotion of 76 posts for gardening assistants launched in June, the City Council started the campaign “I’m a woman, I’m a gardener” to foster women’s participation in the recruitment call and redress the gender bias in gardening tasks.

The City Council ended up receiving 1,580 applications, 52.6% of them from women. The candidates will now take the corresponding tests to cover the 76 places on offer for assistant gardeners.

By way of comparison, women’s applications accounted for just 27.4% of those received in the last recruitment call organised by the Municipal Institute of Parks and Gardens in 2018. Participation in this year’s call is therefore up by over 90%.

The campaign is just one of various actions being taken by Parks and Gardens to promote women’s access to the organisation. Besides revising its recruitment processes and the physical tests involved in the competitive entrance exams for Parks and Gardens, recent months have also seen a study conducted on gardening teams to analyse and monitor the tasks assigned to men and women. Processes for the promotion of women within the organisation have also been introduced.