A new survey has revealed that female graduates are increasingly seeking work in careers that have traditionally been male-dominated.
Research conducted by graduate-jobs.com shows that many women are now looking for work in sectors such as engineering, utilities, and manufacturing and production.
However, the reverse is not true: male graduates are showing no desire to enter careers in traditionally female-dominated sectors; indeed, the tendency for them to do so is decreasing.
The top three career sectors currently favoured by females are secretarial & business administration, charities and language.
As technology becomes more important in everyday life, the dominance of men in the digital media, information technology and computing sectors has fallen from 71.89 percentage points in 2003 to 65.78 percentage points in 2013.
Gerry Wyatt, operations director at graduate-jobs.com, said, "Increasingly, female graduates are looking to work in traditionally male-dominated areas, showing that efforts to combat the gender career divide are working for women."
"Many employers are looking for career-driven women in sectors primarily populated by men, such as banking, engineering, telecoms, IT and sales," he added.
However, he said more should be done to encourage men to seek opportunities in traditionally female-dominated areas. This should include ensuring they have all the available information to hand when considering the range of career opportunities.
Recently, ScienceGrrl, a not-for profit organisation set up to celebrate and support women in science, blamed 'cultural straightjackets' for hampering women's access to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.
A report produced by the organisation claimed the STEM sector must address the needs and realities of girls and young women.
More collaboration between STEM stakeholders is needed to bring about change, it said, as there is currently no overarching plan to unify the different initiatives aimed at increasing women's access to STEM subjects.
ScienceGrrl's remarks followed the publication of a survey which revealed a lack of awareness of female STEM role models among the general public, with one in ten people naming male engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel when asked to identify a famous woman from the field.