May 07 2008
What’s Going on With Women In Construction?
Today we are smack dab in the middle of National Women Build Week, a Habitat for Humanity effort that is underwritten by Lowe’s. The reality is though that women are doing a lot of building for Habitat, all the time, and the bulk of it isn’t happening this week. If you want to know when one of these efforts is coming to a neighborhood near you check this complete list of events for the rest of the year.
One event that is happening this week is in Saginaw, MI, where The Saginaw News reports 40 women will be kicking off a remodeling job by handling exterior finish duties like removing and replacing siding, fascia, soffits, doors, windows and trim. The development manager of the non-profit that oversees all of this says Saginaw women are bullish about Habitat as they represent 50 percent of the total Habitat volunteers in that area.
Across the country in Longview, WA the Daily News reports that local Habitat is expecting 50 women to install siding on a home that was framed out by 18 women on April 5. This is the 10th house this Habitat has built and the 4th Women Build event since 2004. The executive director there, Judy Drage says these events help to “show women they can support their communities by pushing up wall frames, attaching siding and driving nails.”
That’s the volunteer side of women in construction and what many are probably not aware of is that while there is a solid and continuing effort underway to include more women in the construction workforce, there is an anomaly in the employment stats for women in the construction and mining sector.
At the end of 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were a little more than 9.5 million people over the age of 20 employed in the construction and mining industries. Of that total 248,000 were women and that was a decrease of 35,000 over 2006. In the meantime construction/mining employment for men older than 20 increased by 76,000. This was also in the face of an overall increase in employment in that sector over those two years. So, employment in the sector was increasing, employment for men was increasing, but employment for women was decreasing. This probably wasn’t happening because women were leaving their jobs to go into volunteer work.
What do you think? Is there a tendency to hang on to the guys and to hire more of them when economics are changing? Are women being drawn away from the industry by other opportunities? Other observations?
For those of you who are curious about the kinds of organizations supporting women in construction here are some resources:
- The National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) is a 54-year-old organization with objectives aimed at advancing women in construction and to serve as a resource for bettering the construction industry.
- The National Association of Professional Women in Construction was founded in 1980, is a non-profit and helps to advance women and other “non-traditional” populations in construction and related industries.
Others Say: First it was more education for women, including online education. Later people were demanding more jobs for women. Today, many women in construction businesses are the ones who are actually giving out jobs.
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I found your article interesting and thought provoking. I must add that there is a relatively large uncountable number of women working in the trades.
Like myself, who worked on small residential crews spanning 30 years, the greatest access to jobs in construction for most women can be the local contractor. And their numbers are impossible to track.
It would be interesting to see the number of women who are becoming contractors in the building industry…maybe this is the draw that is siphoning them away from the trenches?
Leah Burton
womenstoolshed.com