An intersectionality perspective of female professionals’ lives and participation in the Hong Kong construction industry

Abstract

Purpose: Similar to many other regions around the globe, females constitute a mere one-tenth of the labour force in the construction industry in Hong Kong. Despite the vast number of literature dedicated to the subject, nearly none of them focuses solely on the discussion of the industry in Hong Kong. Research has identified the necessity of increasing female participation in the industry as one of the solutions to cope with the labour shortage, as well as to promote equality and hence efficiency within the sector (Norberg & Johansson, 2020). Seeing the lack of studies in this area in Hong Kong, the author wishes to address this issue of low female participation by exploring the working experiences of female practitioners in the sector in this city. While the majority of previous studies attributed the underrepresentation of women in construction primarily to discriminatory practices and obstacles posed to them, the author counters this view with the opinion that women sometimes enjoy privileges that men do not, depending on various contexts. By applying the framework of intersectionality1 to examine the tangled web of challenges and privileges brought by multiple combinations of identities, social systems, and contexts. This study puts forward a more holistic picture of the working experiences of female professionals in the industry by considering how various levels (individual, organisational, and societal) of spheres surrounding them interact and intersect with one another to shape the working lives of women, thus relating to the causes behind the low female participation rate in the industry. Methodology and Findings: This study utilises a qualitative approach — the author interviews 20 female professionals in the construction industry with different backgrounds. The paper identifies how multi-level factors create context-specific challenges and privileges for female practitioners. The fluidity of burdens and advantages are highlighted and discussed in the study. Overall, participants’ individual-level identities (e.g., “female” or “working mother”) collide with organisational-level identities (such as “minority”) to create specific social positions (e.g., a working mother who belongs to the minority group of employees in the workplace). This particular social position is then influenced by a variety of social systems such as “gender roles and expectations”, “patriarchy”, as well as “masculine dominance” to shape the working experiences of participants. These multi-level factors have generated position-specific challenges and privileges for different participants. One interesting finding is that some interviewees’ experiences exhibited double-edged characteristics that can sometimes be interpreted as advantages or disadvantages depending on specific contexts. For example, female practitioners generally develop a “tougher” persona working in the construction industry, which is usually the desired quality in the construction industry, yet an undesired trait for a woman socially as it contradicts the demure image that is typically expected of females under conventional values. All in all, the female professionals’ participation rate in the construction industry is found not to be low across all occupations. Instead, it is highly dependent on the profession concerned and how its job characteristics contribute to females’ life experiences across different spheres. For instance, according to the interview findings, women take up significantly more positions in the quantity surveying field than they do in the engineering field. The reasons behind this have been discussed at length in the discussion section. Research Limitations: This research draws on a relatively small group of samples of female, middle-classed professionals in the construction industry. The experiences of women belonging to other social groups in the industry may be vastly different from those of the participants. Originality/Value: By connecting females’ low participation rate in the construction industry in Hong Kong with intersectionality, this study provides a complex and multi-level view of how different factors concomitantly favour/burden females in the sector specific to Hong Kong.