Purpose Through a systematic literature review covering 15 years, this paper aims to identify and annotate the barriers that hinder the career development of women working in the construction industry. Furthermore, it describes publication trends that have contributed to the evolution of the topic. Design/methodology/approach A systematic literature review of credible sources in different databases has been carried out for the period from 2000 to 2015. By means of thematic analysis, a data set of 60 articles has been analysed. Findings The topic has been and still is of interest to the research community. Women who work in the construction industry in different countries confront numerous career barriers, the more frequent being the difficulty of balancing work and family, and the lack of professionalism in human resource management. Research limitations/implications Some publications related to the topic might have been inadvertently omitted. Hopefully, this paper can be valuable for informing future research directions. Practical implications The paper is useful to human resource managers to understand how their practices influence women’s career development, gender equity and organisational injustice, and how to improve them. It informs policies to reduce gender discrimination and guides researchers interested in gender diversity in the industry. Social implications A clear vision of career barriers affecting women is required to find solutions and improve the fairness and justice of business practices. Originality/value Previous studies do not offer a comprehensive and up-to-date review covering such a wide time period and so many countries. It will have implications in the identification of initiatives critical to achieving lasting change in gender equity in the construction industry.

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Purpose -Despite initiatives designed to encourage more women, the construction industry and its associated professions remain resolutely male-dominated and the situation shows little signs of changing. Reporting on the findings of an exploratory study which examines the transfer of Equality Policy into practice in three European countries: the UK, France and Spain, we provide cross-national comparisons of the implementation of gender initiatives in a single profession, that of architecture.Methodology -66 semi-structured interviews were carried out in the qualitative paradigm with women architects in the UK, France and Spain.Findings -Findings are two-fold: firstly, our research indicates that there are many weaknesses in the support offered and in the design of the initiatives which serve to discourage women rather than encourage them and secondly, there is a clear need for the dominant body within the industry -the men -to provide the impetus for change Originality -Our research is unique in that it offers a cross-national comparison of the situation within a single profession in a male-dominated industry which has attracted much attention for its lack of diversity and its reluctance to embrace change

The construction sector plays an important role in the global economy since it generates approximately 10% of the world GDP and employs around 7% of the workforce. Professional profiles for building engineers and barriers they may encounter when accessing the labor market as well as in their career development in the sector are researched. Having identified some variables as relevant barriers, this empirical research is exploratory in nature and adopts a descriptive and inferential approach, in order to analyze the influence of gender in the perception of barriers in two Spanish universities. Results show more difficult working circumstances for women, which allows us to reflect on the consequences of these early perceptions on the career development of the next generation of both male and female building engineers.

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