Women Empowerment in Construction Industry
In India, women make up between 50 and 60 percent of recent graduates, yet they make up only 24 percent of entry-level employees in the construction industry. This small group of women typically works as head load carriers and unskilled laborers at the bottom of the construction industry. In the sector, men predominate in technical and managerial positions. This industry is one of the greatest industrial employers in the world, accounting for 28% of all industrial employment. The percentage of women who truly desire to breach this barrier is rather low because it is primarily a male-dominated profession.
Gender Bias in Construction Industry
Construction activity is an integral part of a country’s infrastructure and industrial development. Around 16 per cent of the India’s working population depends on building construction for its livelihood. The Indian construction industry today employs about 31 million people and creates assets worth over Rupees 200,000 million annually.
In India, there is a severe lack of labourers, particularly those with the skills necessary to support the booming infrastructure and housing industries. Like mentioned above, there are less number of women working in construction industry. Sometimes women do not wish to work in the industry and sometimes there are gender biases that prevent them from breaking the glass ceiling. Either or both of those,
As mentioned above, there are fewer women employed in the construction sector. Sometimes gender biases prohibit women from shattering the glass ceiling, and other times they do not want to work in the field. In either case or both, the construction industry in India faces a shortage of skilled workers.
The majority of men and women in the construction industry have the lopsided view that women lack the skills to carry out certain tasks in the industry. This mindset had led to the discrimination of women in the sector and is preventing women from being trained and employed at higher posts in the sector.
Most women who work in construction find that their potential is not fully used. Men and women are assigned various types of work based on what is deemed proper for each gender, not on the basis of a woman’s talent or ability to perform the task.
Empowerment of Women in the Construction Industry
Empowerment aims at creating both equality and equity between individuals or social groups. In order to increase equality and equity for women, gender and social interactions are modified in their favor. In the women empowerment process, women begin to have control over their lives. Their empowerment causes a shift in the distribution of power, in living standards, and in interpersonal dynamics at work.
Women have tried and are currently performing several activities that men in the construction sector perform, demonstrating that women have the ability to advance and hold positions of greater responsibility. Therefore, measures can be implemented to train and hire women. Governmental and non-governmental organizations can step up to recognize women who excel and offer them widespread media coverage. Sensitizing contractors and men in the sector is a responsibility that women groups can take on.
Women face numerous challenges and barriers in the workplace and advance at a slower rate. This gender gap in career advancement is defined by a variety of interrelated institutional and cultural issues, as well as the collaborative methods used by men and women to deal with professional limitations. Women must be given support and encouragement for unconventional choices early on if we want to increase the number of women working in the construction industry. Women must be aggressively recruited into training programs with the aim of configuring the curriculum and skills training to assimilate them into non-traditional employment.