by Duane Craig

Created on: March 22, 2009

In the first week in May we get reminded of all the contributions women make to construction as Habitat for Humanity (HFH), with Lowe's as a sponsor, promotes National Women Build Week. The reality is though that women are doing a lot of building for Habitat, all the time, and the bulk of it isn't happening during that week.

Throughout the year women are building and repairing homes for those who might not be able to do it on their own. Since January HFH chapters in Virginia, Florida, New Jersey, and Georgia have been on building sprees that stretch into May. Chapters in Wisconsin finished up a stint at the end of March that started in February. Other chapters in Texas, Oregon, Maryland and Michigan start in the spring and build all the way through the fall and beyond.

That's the volunteer side of women in construction and what many are probably not aware of is that while there is a solid and continuing effort underway to include more women in the construction workforce, there is an anomaly in the employment stats for women in the construction and mining sector.

At the end of 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were a little more than 9.5 million people over the age of 20 employed in the construction and mining industries. Of that total 248,000 were women and that was a decrease of 35,000 over 2006. In the meantime, construction/mining employment for men older than 20 increased by 76,000. This was also in the face of an overall increase in employment in that sector over those two years. So, employment in the sector was increasing, employment for men was increasing, but employment for women was decreasing. This probably wasn't happening because women were leaving their jobs to go into volunteer work.

Some people contend there may be a tendency to hang on to the guys and to hire more of them when economics are changing. Others point out that women are being drawn away from the industry by other opportunities. It seems to be clear though, that regardless of the reasons for the recent disparity in construction employment numbers for women, there are plenty of them being drawn at least to the volunteer side of the industry. Time will tell whether the numbers of women in the construction workforce will start to rise once construction climbs out of the doldrums.

Women who like to build though have some support. There are organizations working for them like the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC), a 54-year-old organization with objectives aimed at advancing women in construction, and to serve as a resource for bettering the construction industry. The National Association of Professional Women in Construction was founded in 1980, is a non-profit, and it helps to advance women, and other "non-traditional" populations, in construction and related industries.

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