Women advancing in the construction industry

Construction and building have always been seen as masculine work. The biggest proof of this can be found in any engineering school, where one will usually find that female students are almost always a minority. This is slowly changing. Even though these changes cannot be seen in India these days; other countries are realizing women’s potential in the field.

Take Avni Mehta. She is currently the deputy project manager on a £500m housing project at 190 Strand in central London and seven out of the 20 people in her team are women. Avni told the Guardian, The industry is changing and it is changing for the better… That’s quite a high percentage for what would be considered a male-dominated industry.”

Women in Construction: Avni Mehta
Picture by: The Guardian

Avni works for developer St Edward, where 43% of their staff is female. To this she adds, “The fact that we have one female operative is pretty significant. We had one on my last project, too, and I hope to see this increase on the project.” On most women not opting to work on site, Mehta said, “There’s a reason why a lot of women don’t want to . It’s physically demanding. A lot more women could do it but why would you stand out in the rain for 12 hours a day?”

According to the Office for National Statistics, women account for 286,000 of the construction workforce of 2.1 million. Another report states that a girl is four times more likely to take physics A-level in an all girls school than at a co-ed school. Another 24-year-old graduate who is training at the FTSE 250 housebuilder Redrow in London, Nicola Caiquo, told the Guardian that even though she does not face discrimination at site, people are little surprised to see a girl turn up on site.

ORIGINAL SOURCE: The Guardian

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