We have all heard the stats: women make up roughly 11% of construction workers and only 4% of skilled trades. We have been citing these numbers here at Constructech for far longer than any of us would like to admit, but the truth is the numbers have stayed stagnant for years. Of course, the 2020 pandemic caused a shakeup for women in the workforce, and it seems we might be headed in the wrong direction. The general labor force numbers from the U.S. BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) tell perhaps the most revealing tale of the tape.
And what they show won’t come as a surprise to many. The fact is in 2020 the share of women who participated in the labor force fell by 1.2 percentage points, bringing it down to 56.2%, which is the lowest rate since 1987. This is nearly 4 percentage points below the peak of 60% in 1999. So, it seems we were trending in the wrong direction even before the 2020 pandemic.
Journey back for a minute to the 1960s through the 1980s when women’s labor-force participation increased dramatically, before slowing in the 1990s and early 2000s. We began to see a decline of women in the workforce during the December 2007–June 2009 recession, hitting a prepandemic low in 2015 at 56.7%. The rate then rose to 57.4% in 2019, before the pandemic. It seems any time a crisis hits, women leave the workforce.
Naturally, there are several factors that impact this downward trend. We must consider another big statistic for a moment. Unmarried mothers are much more likely to participate in the labor force than married mothers. In March 2020, 77.7% of unmarried mothers were in the labor force, compared with
70.4% of married mothers.
Perhaps the reasons here are obvious, but Pew Research gives us some interesting insights. In egalitarian marriages, wives spend roughly 2 hours more per week on caregiving than husbands do and about 2.5 hours more on housework. When wives are the sole earners, the amount of time husbands spend on caregiving and housework does tick up somewhat. But the big takeaway here is even when earnings are similar, husbands spend more time on paid work and leisure, while wives devote more time to caregiving and housework.
Add to this the fact that women are often paid less than men and it is no surprise then that women are frequently leaving the workforce in droves—especially when times of crisis occur.
The problem is the construction industry desperately needs workers. If not women, then Gen Z, right? Not so fast. In research from Morgan Sindall Construction, we find Gen Z’s preferred industry of choice is media. In fact, several industries ranked well above construction including healthcare, retail, hospitality, marketing/PR, financial services, education, transport, and energy. Construction is tied with manufacturing and only ranked above agriculture in this survey. In this survey, construction was also rejected by more than half of women.
Perhaps this problem is obvious for many people, especially women who are living it every day, but it still is important to talk about this. Although, naming it is only the first step in coming up with solutions. The solutions will need to be myriad and will need to take place at all levels: at the enterprise and in the home.
What are your thoughts? How do we address the barriers that women face in construction specifically and even in the workplace in general?
Want to tweet about this article? Use hashtags #construction #IoT #sustainability #AI #5G #cloud #edge #futureofwork #infrastructure #women