2021 NAWIC AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE

SWITCHING ON CUSTOMERS & YOUNG WOMEN TO ACHIEVE #25BY2025

– with 3 Pillars & a Bulldozer

NAWIC and industry supporters are relentless in their quest to attract more women into the construction industry. The #20by2025 plan with its three pillars of action is testament to the strategic and determined advocacy that NAWIC is renowned for.

NAWIC and advocates are making headway under the three key pillars:

⋅Advocacy and lobbying for change. ⋅ Education for individuals, companies and industry as a whole. ⋅ Connection, Celebration and Support for all women in construction through our membership Community.

Despite determined efforts the composition of trade-qualified women in construction remains entrenched at around 2%.

To shift the 2% into double digits will require three pillars and a bulldozer. That ‘bulldozer’ is a metaphor for digging up deeply embedded gender stereotypes and barriers blocking the pathway for women and girls into male-dominated trades, and laying new foundations.

Shifting the intractable 2% with young women and the public on board. We know that every year more industry and government leaders step up to drive the bulldozer.

What we don’t know a lot about is what customers who call on a ‘tradie’ think. Do they, and in particular, female customers think twice that 98% of the time a man arrives with his van and toolbag?

We also don’t know a lot about whether young women are aware that construction trades are 98% male-dominated and that they pay much more than female-dominated trades, like hairdressing. Do they thinks it’s a problem that needs to be fixed?

The public — the customers— are quiet. Young women are quiet on this issue. It’s hard to find robust research that provides women’s responses to the questions: Dr Karen Struthers completed her PhD research into Pathways into Male-Dominated Trades for Women to maintain the momentum for change. As a former Minister for Communities, Housing and Women in Queensland Karen led the groundbreaking Girls in Hard Hats and Women in Hard Hats programs with the support of NAWIC and other industry groups. Email: k.struthers@griffith.edu.au

a. Would you like the choice of having a female or male tradesperson? b. Do you consider it a problem that women make up 2% of trade-qualified workers in construction trades?

c. Would you feel safer with a female tradie in your home?

A survey reported that almost one in three women in the UK say they would feel safer hiring a tradeswoman to do a home improvement or maintenance job in their home.

As an activist, a researcher and former Member of Parliament and Minister leading the Women in Hard Hats and Girls in Hard Hats government programs I became acutely aware that reform gets a good nudge along when a groundswell of public and media support swing in behind it.

Agenda-building theory and experience shows us that government or industry will rarely invest substantially in major reforms unless there is a sustained call from the public that a troublesome issue needs a fix.

Advocates of gender equality in construction view the intractable 2% as a big problem, but young women or the general public do not seem have this issue on their minds.

Advocates know that attracting and retaining women in male dominated trades is one of the ‘tools’ needed to fix skills shortage — it will be good for industry, good for the economy and good for women.

As advocates, we also assume it will be good for customers.