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Andrew R.J. Dainty: School of the Built Environment, Coventry University, Coventry, UK
Richard H. Neale: School of the Built Environment, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, UK
Barbara M. Bagilhole: Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The authors are grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council who funded the research on which this paper is based, to the five organisations who participated in the project and to the informants who gave their time to be interviewed as part of the study.
Introduction
There is a demonstrable under-representation of women within the UK construction industry (Court and Moralee, 1995; EOC, 1996). Currently, women comprise under 4 per cent of the membership of the UK's construction-related professional bodies (Davey et al., 1998). This makes it the most male dominated of all major UK industrial sectors. However, throughout the 1990s, a business case has been developed for attracting women to the sector. This essentially rests on two premises: first, that the economy is under-utilising the full range of skills and talents in the population because of continuing unequal opportunities for some groups within society; and second, that it should be possible for organisations to increase their efficiency and effectiveness by projecting a more pluralistic self-image, and thereby widening their pool of potential customers (see Bagilhole, 1997; CIB, 1996). Proponents of workforce diversification argue that it leads to a better informed, more adaptable organisation which is closer to its customers (Ross and Schneider, 1992; Coussey and Jackson, 1991; Greenhaus and Callanan, 1994).
In recent years, the industry has begun to attempt to redress the gender imbalance. A industry-backed task force was set up to explore equality issues (CIB, 1996), and individual organisations, professional bodies and national training organisations have all undertaken steps to improve women's representation and the level of their involvement. Successful examples include insight initiatives developed by Gale (1994), and the Women into Science and Engineering (WISE) campaign run by the Engineering Council (see Shillito, 1992). Such initiatives have contributed to women's employment increasing over the decade to 1994 by 14 per cent, while men's declined by 7 per cent over the same period (Court and Moralee, 1995, p. 13). Women now comprise some 18 per cent of the undergraduates on UK construction related undergraduate...