Effects of Family-Related Factors on Female Project Managers’ Salaries in the Construction Industry in the United States

Abstract

This study explores predictors of female project managers' salary in the construction industry and analyzes the relationship between salaries and specific variables.Although prior research indicates a relationship does exist between certain variables and women's salaries that research does not focus on the construction industry. This research sought to identify correlations between experience, age, marital status, motherhood, having children at home, and the number of children at home, and female project manager's salaries in the construction industry. To our knowledge, this study represents the only research of its kind specific to women project managers in the U.S. construction industry. Utilizing a snowball sampling method, 206 survey responses were collected and analyzed through comprehensive descriptive and statistical analyses. A regression model was constructed to determine the predictive power of the variables studied. Fifty percent of the variability in female project manager's salary can be accounted for by the model produced. The study's sample showed that, being married and having children at home are negatively correlated with female project managers' salaries. As would be expected, age and experience are also correlated and the correlation is strongly positive.

Barriers to the Professional Development of Qualified Women in the Peruvian Construction Industry

“…The poor negative image of the construction industry means that many men and women are reluctant or have little interest in working in the sector (Bennett et al 1999;Fielden et al 2000;Bilbo et al 2014). The male dominated image and the masculine culture of the construction industry effectively deter women from entering it Denissen and Saguy 2014).…”

“…The male dominated image and the masculine culture of the construction industry effectively deter women from entering it Denissen and Saguy 2014). Female construction professionals are few given the image of the engineering profession, a lack of knowledge among the general public of what engineering is, and a misguided emphasis on math and science by recruiters (Bilbo et al 2014;Francis et al 2014;Pellicer et al 2014). The misconception that the construction industry involves only site activities considered hazardous, dangerous, difficult and unsuitable, continues to be the major barrier to female entry into the industry (Kehinde and Okoli 2004;Ness 2012;Kaewsri and Tonghong 2014).…”

“…The concern shared by many researchers is to identify the barriers that women face throughout their working lives, not only to enter the field, but also to develop professionally in the construction sector; from the point of view of this research, a barrier is a set of circumstances, impediments or obstacles that prevents progress. This has been the focus of several studies carried out in the United States (Bilbo et al 2014;Denissen and Saguy 2014;Malone et al 2014), the United Kingdom (Dainty et al 2000b;Fielden et al 2000;Dainty and Lingard 2006;Ness 2012;Fernando et al 2014;Powell and Sang 2015), the European Union (Byrne et al 2005), Australia Dainty and Lingard 2006;French and Strachan 2015;Galea et al 2015), Singapore , South Africa (Madikizela and Haupt 2010; English and Le Jeune 2012), Nigeria (Kehinde and Okoli 2004;Adeyemi et al 2006), Tanzania (Sospeter et al 2014), Bangladesh (Hossain and Kusakabe 2005;Choudhury 2013), Thailand (Kaewsri and Tonghong 2011), Malaysia (Jaafar et al 2014), among others.…”

“…Furthermore, in the construction sector, human resources can be sorted into two different categories (Fielden et al 2000; Le Jeune 2012): on the one hand, managers and professionals (mainly architects, engineers, and surveyors), as well as administrative and clerical staff; on the other hand, the construction trades. Several of the previous contributions have been focused on the industry as a whole (e.g., Fielden et al 2000), whereas others have analyzed the role of managers and professionals (e.g., Bilbo et al 2014), or more specifically the construction trades (e.g., Ness 2012). Some of these studies also point out that women tend to work in administrative and clerical jobs (Fielden et al 2000;Byrne et al 2005;Francis and Prosser 2014).…”

“…The research illustrated in this paper takes a holistic approach regarding the barriers that women face during their entry and advance in the construction industry; previous research has been focused on these issues from a narrowed focus, such as family-related factors (e.g. Bilbo et al 2014) or women's abilities (e.g. Ness 2012), or only partially, taking into consideration some of the potential barriers (e.g.…”