Back to Industry—Evaluating Women’s Return to Chartered Accreditation Post-Maternity in the Built Environment Sector Professions

Sinead Clarkson () and Lucy Hind ()
Additional contact information
Sinead Clarkson: PH Plasterers Ltd., Suite 5, West Chevin Business Centre, West Chevin Road, Otley LS21 3HA, UK
Lucy Hind: School of Built Environment Engineering and Computing, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds LS1 3PB, UK

Administrative Sciences, 2024, vol. 14, issue 9, 1-23

Abstract: Efforts have been made to improve gender diversity in the built environment professions. This sector continues to experience growth restrictions due to skill shortages. Some progress has been made at the entry level; however, the retention of women in professional roles within this sector continues to present a challenge. Support for women during maternity, upon return to work and while working with family has been identified as a barrier to women’s progression in this sector. Professional bodies are uniquely placed to support their female members. Therefore, this study had two aims: to examine current professional body support for members during and after maternity leave and to examine the experiences of female professionals, who have taken maternity leave whilst holding membership in a built environment professional body. This study adopted an embedded, mixed-method design, using a secondary, qualitative data set to augment the primary, quantitative data set, within one phase. Surveys were distributed directly to professional bodies and to professionals via social media (LinkedIn). The survey of the professional bodies identified a varied approach to maternity support. The professional member survey identified a lack of awareness of available support, and generally the need for more support during maternity and on return to work. In summary, professional bodies in the built environment could improve maternity support for members by improving communication and achieving parity in support across the various disciplines.

Keywords: gender equality; women in construction; maternity; employment; construction skills; skills shortage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L M M0 M1 M10 M11 M12 M14 M15 M16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/14/9/204/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/14/9/204/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jadmsc:v:14:y:2024:i:9:p:204-:d:1469880

Access Statistics for this article

Administrative Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Nancy Ma

More articles in Administrative Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().