New analysis from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research finds that women’s job growth in construction trades was nearly 5 times faster than job growth in the field overall
Between 2017 and 2018, the number of women working in construction trades increased by 17.6 percent, rising to well over a quarter of a million women (276,000), according to a new analysis from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR). This growth is nearly five times faster than job growth of 3.7 percent in construction occupations overall.
The share of women working in construction trades in 2018 is the highest in twenty years, but women remain strongly underrepresented in the trades: fewer than one in twenty (3.4 percent) of construction trades workers in 2018 were women. The only other time since 1999 when the share was above 3.0 percent was in 2006. Even when administrative and back office staff working in construction are included, women were fewer than one in ten (9.9 percent) workers employed in the sector.