Barriers to women in the UK construction industry

Lisa Worrall · Peter McDermott

109 citations0/0 files storedEngineering Construction & Architectural Management

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Gender Diversity and Inequality Employment, Labor, and Gender Studies Career Development and Diversity

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to identify the main barriers that lead to the under‐representation of women in the UK construction industry. The study, funded by ConstructionSkills, seeks to explore the issues that women face and investigate the potential positive impact that continuous professional development (CPD) may have upon improving the retention and career progression of women. Design/methodology/approach The study uses an open‐ended grounded theory (GT) approach, including 231 semi‐structured questionnaires and nine focus groups with women from a range of professional occupations. All the findings were analysed using keyword analysis to identify the top two barriers that women face, alongside a series of cross‐cutting key themes and issues. Findings The findings reveal that male‐dominated organisational cultures and inflexible working practices are the main barriers to women in the UK construction industry, irrespective of job role or profession. This paper concludes by arguing for a sea‐change in the expansion of CPD opportunities for women in managerial, confidence and communication based skills, with accompanying networking and support systems to facilitate the retention and advancement of women in the industry sector. Research limitations/implications Due to the research approach, the data are not generalisable. Therefore, researchers are advised to research and test the findings with a larger group. Researchers are also recommended to investigate the impact of expanded CPD opportunities for both men and women. Originality/value The paper puts forward a business case for the advancement of specific CPD training for women, to facilitate the expansion of equality and diversity in the workforce in the UK construction industry.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 109 citations exist upstream.

References

1992Basics of Grounded Theory Analysis: Emergence Vs. Forcing 2000Women in construction: the untapped resource 2000A grounded theory of women's career under-achievement in large UK construction companies 2000Women in the Construction Professions: Achieving Critical Mass

Cited by

2022An integrated conceptual framework of the glass ceiling effect 2017What influences professional women’s career advancement in construction?2013Managerial competencies of female and male managers in the Swedish construction industry 2017Challenges, success factors and strategies for women’s career development in the Australian construction industry 2021Scientometric Review of the Twenty-First Century Research on Women in Construction 2020Navigating barriers faced by women in leadership positions in the US construction industry: a retrospective on women’s continued struggle in a male-dominated industry 2015Women at work! Evaluating equal employment policies and outcomes in construction 2011Measurement and Antecedents of Cooperation in Construction

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.