Gender inequality promoting managerial competencies between male and female managers in

the construction industry

-Rajat Mankar (2381471)
Background and Overview:

The term Gender inequality acknowledges that men and women are not equal, and that gender affects
an individual’s lived experience. These differences arise from differences in the norms of biology,
psychology and culture. Some of these distinctions are empirically grounded, while others seem to be
constructed socially. Despite a range of equality legislation and initiatives, the construction industry
remains one of the most male dominant sectors. Women are under-represented in the construction
industry.
Problem Definition:
According to the most recent research conducted by the UK Bureau of Statistics women constitutes
only 9.6% of the workforce in the construction industry, while the proportion of women in the overall
national workforce is 46%. Among women who are the part of the construction industry, few of them
occupy project management positions. There are many reasons that prevent professional women from
entering the industry.
Objectives:
The objectives and scope of the present study is to contribute for improvement in current work
practices in the construction industry which are related with women. Moreover, the study evaluates
the managerial competencies of female project managers by administering a competency assessment
test and comparing the results with the managerial competencies of male project managers.
Research Methodology:
The research methodology for this study is qualitative approach. The procedure is inquisitive and can
be divided into three major steps.
i) At first, the data collecting was done by distributing some questionnaires to male and
female staffs at contractor, consultant and developer in companies. The first step taken
was to ask about how many male and female workers there were in the company.
ii) Then, interviews with 20 professional experts using management development
questionnaire (MDQ) to identify the strength of chief executive officers, managers.
iii) Development of multi criteria decision making models for simulation of data from
expert’s views to perform feasible comparison among the possible improvement in the
current work practices.
iv) The final step will be proposal of a developed model to the professional experts for their
feedback and assessment on the developed model.
Problems and Limitations:
As the time period is short to complete the study, there might be some issues with it. The
representatives from a certain field or department with whom the interview is to be conducted may
not be willing to or may not adjust with any time slot for the interview. Any required data for the
study which is to be collected from a department can be delayed for any concomitant procedure.
There might be some restrictions to reveal any data which could be useful to this study. So, all these
issues can be resolved by proper planning and filtering the requirement of data according to
convenience of availability and collection.
 Expected Contribution:
This study can evaluate the reasons for the gender inequality in the construction sector incorporation
with the impact of it on the competencies between male and female managers. Moreover, this study
can propose some change management model for balancing the gender in the construction sector.
References:
Arditi, D. and Balci, G. (2009). Managerial Competencies of Female and Male Construction
Managers. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 135(11), pp.1275-1278.

Sang, K., & Powell, A. (2012). Gender inequality in the construction industry: Lessons from Pierre
Bourdieu. In S. D. Smith (Ed.), 28th annual ARCOM conference (pp. 237– 247). Edinburgh:
Association of Researchers in Construction Management.

Andi, A. and Mariska, D. (2017). WOMEN CAREER and FACTORS INFLUENCING in

CONSTRUCTION. In: EACEF - The 1st International Conference of European Asian Civil
Engineering Forum. [online] ResearchGate, pp.172-176. Available at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320583534_WOMEN_CAREER_and_FACTORS_INFLU
ENCING_in_CONSTRUCTION [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019].

Dainty, A., Bagilhole, B. and Neale, R. (2001). Male and female perspectives on equality measures for the
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