First, I'm aware that there is a concerted effort in industry & politics to promote "Gender Equality" measures; with the end-game quotas, legal statutes, government power over individuals, intervention, etc.

Second, any policy intervention to correct "discrimination" is itself discrimination. The alternative is freedom & liberty (which benefits everybody). There are countermeasures to correct the "bad actors" & reward the "good actors". Many people who will choose to not give a certain company business if the company is perceived to be against one's values.

> This is specifically about why women leave engineering, with a number of incidental measures about the egalitarian qualifications across gender (for the studied population).

My responses to the "Key Findings" on the report:

> Nearly half said they left because of working conditions, too much travel, lack of advancement or low salary.

I don't have a study handy, but this is not a situation unique to women. Too much travel, lack of advancement and low salaries are a symptom of corporate culture & the inverted leadership pyramid. Being on the bottom is not as good as being on the top & there's less room at the top. Having quotas does not help the people at the bottom nor does it necessarily create better cultural dynamics.

> One-in-three women left because they did not like the workplace climate, their boss or the culture.

I didn't like the workplace climates of several of my jobs. Didn't like all of my bosses or all of the cultures as well. If there is harassment toward women in a workplace, it's probably indicative of deeper issues where others are not being respected as well (in ways related to the characteristics of that person). The solution is not to put certain politically ordained "victim" characteristics on a pedestal; in fact it's an anti-solution because it discourages organizations/people to explore root causes.

> One-in-four left to spend time with family.

Understandable as this has been a more traditional pattern for women. Having a child means focusing more on family & less on the profession.

> Those who left were not different from current engineers in their interests, confidence in their abilities, or the positive outcomes they expected from performing engineering related tasks.

The map is not the territory. Models are an imperfect distillation of reality; especially models aggregating the complexity of many different lives.

While I agree that there are different outcomes in gender, culture, race, etc. The point is everybody (as in all people) has the legal ability to succeed in a profession. If you want certain people to succeed more, address the tools that they have & work to give them better tools so they can succeed. The wrong thing to do is to encourage a victim mentality & a autocratic culture that enforces a certain predetermined outcome; that is the opposite of freedom & liberty.

> It's pretty well established [0] that the circumstances of ones birth - race, wealth and, yes, gender are a key determining factor in your expected life outcomes. Equal opportunities are emphatically not available to all.

The source you provided assumes unwarranted prejudice as a reason. There are other determining factors related to the circumstances such as ability, temperament, education, culture, intelligence.

Let me clarify. Everybody has equal opportunity but not everybody is equally fit to take advantage of the opportunity. The best way to improve everybody's situation is to make the participants more fit for the job.