Conway, Z; Wade, F and Smith, S D (2018) A participant observation study of gender dynamics on construction sites. In: Gorse, C and Neilson, C J (eds.) Proceedings of 34th Annual ARCOM Conference, 3-5 September 2018, Queen’s University, Belfast, UK.
Abstract
While the working population of women in the UK is 47%, in construction this drops to less than 10%. While there are significantly more women working in a professional capacity than workers, this situation has led to investigations in recent years into why female students do not take up STEM subjects and enter the industry. Many investigations have also focused on why they leave the industry. However, too little work has been done to explore the impacts of professional women once in, or still in, construction, particularly on construction sites. Does having a woman on a construction site affect working relationships? If so to what extent is this apparent? Are women are treated differently on a construction site when compared to their male counterpart? In order to investigate these issues and attempt to answer these questions a participant observation approach utilising ethnographic methods was employed on a £16M construction project in Glasgow between June 2017 and March 2018. The site employed an average of 30-40 workers per day with the researcher undertaking non-covert observations whilst employed as a site engineer. These observations were supplemented with interviews with workers of both genders and at various points in their career path. The interviews will be used to expand and highlight on any issues which may arise through the onsite observations. Observations will be presented in the form of vignettes followed by an analysis with comparisons drawn from other industries. Early results suggest that the presence of assumptions on gender roles and stereotypes that male workers bring to the workplace heavily influence the attitudes, dynamics and relationships. This research will highlight any issues that need to be addressed and changed to aid the industry in encouraging and welcoming more female operatives into the sector whilst gaining a better gender balance in the workplace.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | ethnography; gender; careers; women; participant observation |
| Index terms: | engineer, dynamics, stereotype, population, presence, construction project, career, onsite, construction site, investigation, operative, ethnography, women, vignette, observation, interview |
| Subjects: | production management, environmental science, professional development, systems engineering, profession, research dissemination and communication, qualitative and interpretive research, data collection methods, demography, practitioner, building construction, sociology, work location |
| Topics: | Research Practice, Roles and Professions, Information Management, Sustainability, Engineering Principles, Construction Technology, Project Management, Urban Studies, Site Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here