Women In Construction
Where Have All the Women Gone?
The UK construction industry is one of the country's largest and most important employers. It is worth £1.5 billion, provides a tenth of the UK's gross domestic product and employs 1.4 million people.
A recent report by the Equal Opportunities Commission found that while women make up 49% of the total UK workforce, they hold just 9% (this breaks down as 1% of trades-people, 10% of those working in design and management, 84% secretarial, 2% are sole traders and 4% are micro-enterprises (employing 1-10 people)) of all construction jobs. How can this be when the construction industry is facing well publicised skills shortages, which is estimated to be 234,000 new recruits required during 2007 alone?
Is it because women don’t see themselves working in a traditionally male dominated industry? Or, is it employers make a point of not recruiting women as they are seen as the ‘weaker sex’?
In 2005, leading Construction Recruitment organisation, Hill McGlynn, surveyed 3,000 construction companies and female employees to see whether the gender gap is being addressed. The research uncovered some interesting facts:
* A small majority (55%) report that they have altered working hours and practices to accommodate the needs of their female employees;
* 79% reported that they place no special focus on recruiting more women to the company;
* When asked what deters women from the construction industry, they themselves point to a mixture of the ‘male dominated environment’, ‘long hours’, ‘working conditions’ and ‘not child friendly’ culture;
* When asked why they had chosen a career in construction, 85% referred to a fundamental interest in building and engineering, the good career prospects or just the fact that they wanted to do something a bit ‘different’ in life – all good indicators of enthusiasm and commitment for the choices they had made;
* While 40% had worked in construction for 6+ years, 66% claimed to be aware of sexism in the industry, and 47% said they would leave if their current employers were unsympathetic to their increased family responsibilities (if they had children) and failed to offer flexible working hours.
It is worth remembering that during the later part of the 1990s the numbers of women entering the construction industry increased dramatically and now there are as many women construction managers as there are receptionists, however women still make-up only 4% of all construction managers.
Many trades that deal mainly with domestic users are desperately short of female operatives. For example, in many households religion requires that whilst a man is at work during the day no other man is allowed in the house. A plumbing emergency can not therefore be resolved until the man returns home. Mature career changer training provider, New Career Skills, believes this and other skills women bring to the plumbing and electrical trades, has led to them seeing a dramatic increase in women enrolling on their courses and especially looking for self-employment, rather than a job, at the end. “Up to 20% of new enrolments are from women and most of them are looking to become self-employed at the end of their course” said Brian Howells training manager in Southampton.
While it was universally agreed that employers should and do recruit on merit (rather than ‘positively discriminating’ for women) it is clear that many women may not apply for construction jobs in the first place because of the acknowledged deterrents. Therefore companies that are addressing the working hours / working environment issues on behalf of their female employees need to promote the fact to future candidates if they want to benefit from a more diverse workforce.
