Cracking the code for female participation in infrastructure

As another International Women’s Day arrives, there are a range of important issues deserving of our collective attention. 

In infrastructure, women represent 14% of the construction workforce and only 2% of roles on site. Knowing that infrastructure accounted for 8.9% of national GDP in 2021-22, it’s clear there is a need to ‘crack the code’ to make a career in infrastructure more attractive for women and other underrepresented groups.

There are a range of reasons for low levels of female employment in our sector. The Cost of Doing Nothing Report, released in 2021 by the Culture in Construction Taskforce highlighted several factors that are preventing our sector from attracting, recruiting and retaining female talent, including: 

• Young women being actively discouraged to join the sector whilst at school 

• Persistent gendered assumptions about ‘women’s work’ 

• Lack of prominent and visible female construction role models 

• Employer bias and recruitment practices 

• Gendered violence 

• Health and safety hazards 

• Rigid workplace practices. 

Widespread low female representation, combined with other cultural issues within the construction sector, was estimated to cost the economy close to $8 billion annually. 

Combined with recent research from Infrastructure Australia arguing that labour scarcity is the single biggest issue faced by construction companies, and that public infrastructure projects across the country face a shortage of 214,000 skilled workers, it seems that increasing the participation of women in infrastructure would provide a short-term opportunity to expand the available workforce and respond to the immediate capacity challenges facing our sector. 

But over the longer term, by taking deliberate and meaningful action to address the working needs of women and other underrepresented groups, we unlock the potential to foster a more resilient, sustainable sector that is capable of delivering the infrastructure we’ll need in the future.  

The Construction Industry Culture Taskforce has worked with industry to develop a ‘Culture Standard’ that aims to tackle the interrelated issues of excessive work hours and fatigue, poor mental health, and failure to attract a diverse workforce. 

If successful, pilots of the Culture Standard in NSW and Victoria could improve worker wellbeing, work-life balance and industry culture – a benefit for everyone working on site. 

There are other promising signs of change.  

The NSW Government Action Plan: A ten point commitment to the construction sector specifically calls out the need to identify, measure and report on the diversity of the construction workforce, with a commitment to increase female and First Nation peoples participation in the sector. The NSW Government has committed to a goal of reaching 15% women in trade and non-traditional construction roles by 2030. Victoria’s Building Equality Policy incorporates a range of actions, including implementation of project-specific gender equality targets, engaging women as apprentices and trainees, and implementing Gender Equality Action Plans as part of tender processes. The ACT Government, with the CFMEU, is undertaking the Industry Coordination Project to better understand the factors impacting female participation in the sector and in Western Australia, a 12-month gender diversity procurement pilot is currently underway.  There are a range of other commendable initiatives across the public and private sectors working to create change.

For our part, at Avista, we value diversity, recognising that people with different backgrounds, cultures, skills and experiences bring new ideas and perceptions that benefit us all. As a socially-minded and progressive organisation, we want to ensure no community is a victim of entrenched disadvantage or ‘left behind’.  

Our commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging extends to the clients we choose to work with, and we strive to work with organisations that are aware and reflective of our inclusive ways of working.  

Across government and industry, we all have a role to play in Cracking the Code, innovating for a gender equal future, and we look forward to seeing what progress is made over the coming year in our sector. 

Hayley Davis and Lee Callaghan are Partners at Avista Strategy, and executive sponsors of the DEIB working group.