Persistence of Women in the Construction Industry: Fid-Bau Portal

Persistence of Women in the Construction Industry

Lewis, Amy King / Shan, Yongwei

Women are under-represented in the construction industry and comprise only 9.9% of the total workforce. Further, prior research on women in construction is limited and heavily focused on recruitment and retention in academia. Therefore, research in workplace dynamics is needed to identify and address workforce recruitment and retention issues. Building from prior research conducted in engineering, this study aimed to identify personal and organizational factors associated with persistence within the field of construction. Persistence and personal factors were measured through the administration of a survey covering several areas: self-efficacy and outcome expectation, organizational support for work-life balance and training development, occupational commitment and satisfaction, and turnover intentions. Results suggest that women that persist in the field of construction do differ from non-persisters in their level of occupational commitment and perceived ability to navigate within their organization’s culture (organizational self-efficacy). Organizational self-efficacy and career resilience (occupational commitment) were shown to be significant predictors of persistence within the construction industry explaining 71.8% of the variance. These research findings will raise awareness and opportunities for companies to address recruitment and retention of women within the field of construction.