The Lower Saxony Girls' and Boys' Day has been around since 2005 and is based on the national Girls’ Day/Boys’ Day. It is one of the key orientation events in the country. On this day, girls and boys are encouraged to explore gender-atypical professions – in particular, those they have not previously considered due to a lack of role models, for example.

• Girls gain a glimpse into technical and scientific professions as well as manual occupations.
• Boys discover social and educational careers and learn what it’s like to work in a library or an administration department, for example.

The underlying principle behind the Girls' and Boys' Day is that separate activities are organised for boys and girls. The children are then more open to discovering and learning about careers that are new to them. In mixed groups, girls and boys quickly fall back into traditional gender roles and find it more difficult to engage with and embrace new ideas about planning their career in particular and life in general. As such, separate groups for girls and boys, in which they are surrounded by other girls or boys and together experience a dedicated programme, form the backbone of the Future Day.

As nationwide studies have shown, Girls’ Day (in Lower Saxony: Future Day) generates and reinforces positive trends, such as the growing percentage of female students studying natural sciences and computing science and more female trainees in technical professions. As such, these initiatives make a sustainable contribution to preventing a shortage of skilled workers. Despite having a good school education, when it comes to choosing an apprenticeship or degree programme, girls often tend to focus on a limited range of occupational fields and subjects and therefore do not make full use of the opportunities available to them. At the same time, companies are struggling to find qualified young people, especially in technical and technology-related fields. In particular, women are still significantly underrepresented in leadership positions in Germany’s business and science sectors.

Since 2011, the Girls' and Boys' Day has been centrally organised and coordinated by the Equal Opportunities Office. This also includes the evaluation of the event, which helps us to keep improving the event. Questionnaires are used to assess the providers’ reasons for taking part and their goals on the one hand, and to find out what the participating children thought about and how they experienced the event on the other.

More information in German