Built for men: Institutional privilege in the Australian construction industry

The construction industry is Australia’s most male dominated sector where men’s over-representation and dominance has remained unyielding in this area for decades. Scholars and the construction sector define the problem as an issue associated with women’s under-representation and powerlessness. This dissertation takes the inverse perspective, reorientating the focus from women’s disadvantage to men’s advantage. Applying key concepts from feminist institutionalism and the literature on masculinities and on privilege, this dissertation aims to examine the role of masculine privilege in maintaining men’s over-representation and powerfulness in the construction industry. This research applies an interpretivist approach. It uses an ethnographic study of a large multinational construction company to examine how acts of privilege operate across the career landscape – including recruitment, progression and retention - in a construction company. It considers how the ‘rules-in-use' propagate hegemonic masculinity and male over-representation in construction professions at the expense of women construction professionals. In this research a multi-method ethnography was conducted and analysed over three phases. It includes: document analysis of 30 company policies, 42 interviews, 24 participant observations undertaken across six company events and three construction sites. This dissertation finds that hegemonic masculinity is embedded in the pattern of rules that operate within construction companies, the by-product of which is masculine privilege. Key findings from the research are that masculine privilege in construction acts three ways to maintain the gender status quo: through a culture of denial perceptions that rules are neutral, legitimate and applied objectively and through backlash and resistance. It concludes that looking across the three career stages of recruitment, progression and retention, women construction professionals are disadvantaged by the ‘rules-in-use', which are firmly held in place to maintain men’s institutional privilege, over-representation, and power in the construction sector.