Gender (in)equality contested: externalising employment in the construction industry

• Author: Maria Rasmusson,Gunilla Olofsdotter
• Date: 01 March 2016
• Published date: 01 March 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12057

Gender (in)equality contested 41© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

New Technology, Work and Employment 31:1

ISSN 1468-005X

Gender (in)equality contested: externalising

employment in the construction industry

Gunilla Olofsdotter and Maria Rasmusson

In construction and engineering, workers from different organ-

isations work together, often on a project- by- project basis.

Drawing on the theoretical framework of inequality regimes as

presented by Acker (2006a), and the externalisation of employ-

ment relations presented by Kalleberg et al. (2003), this article

investigates the gendered implications of the externalisation

of technological work in the construction industry. The empir-

ical material is based upon interviews and a questionnaire an-

swered by regular employees, contracted staff and independent

contractors working in the construction industry. The data re-

veal how non- standard employments are parts of the organis-

ing processes that produce gendered inequalities between core

and peripheral workers. This finding does not suggest that pe-

ripheral work indicates poor working conditions, to be more

precise, peripheral workers can be in the most privileged po-

sitions.

Keywords: project work, construction industry, gender, exter-

nalisation, inequality regimes, engineering.

Introduction

The minority position of women in the science, engineering and technology (SET)

professions has been a concern for years in Sweden (Statskontoret, 2009; SCB,

2014) and in other countries (Gale, 1994; Dainty et al., 2004; Adams and Weiss,

2011). Because women are under- represented in technology fields (Adams and

Weiss, 2011), organisations have recognised the benefit of retaining the few women

who are in the industry (Sappleton and Takruri- Rizk, 2008). The lack of women

in SET professions has been explained, for example, as a result of individual

choice, discrimination, work–family responsibilities, interests and organisational

leadership (e.g. Acker, 1990; Agapiou, 2002; Eriksson- Zetterquist and Knights, 2004;

Watts, 2007, 2009a,b; Wajcman, 2008; Styhre, 2011). In a study of the factors that

influence the matching of women to science and technology occupations, Srinivas

found that it is more difficult for women to succeed. Although educational achieve-

ment and educational choice play an important role in occupational choices, she

found that ‘education plays a much smaller role in occupational matching for

women compared with men’ (Srinivas, 2011:153). In a study of men and women

who aspire to be technology leaders, Adams and Weiss (2011) reported that the

stereotypical view that women are better at working with people might work in

Gunilla Olofsdotter (Gunilla.olofsdotter@miun.se) is Associate Professor in Sociology and is affiliated

to Department of Social Sciences, Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall, Sweden. Maria Rasmusson (Ma-

ria.rasmusson@miun.se) is Senior Lecturer in Education and is affiliated to Department of Education,

Mid Sweden University, Härnösand, Sweden

42 New Technology, Work and Employment © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

women’s favour in terms of their aspirations, indicating that the explanations for

the shortage of women in technological work have been varied and, to some

extent, contradictory. The gendered division of labour is also present in the con-

struction industry, in which workers from different organisations work together,

often on a project- by- project basis. Construction is technology- intensive work that

demands technological specialists and managers and manual labour. In contrast

to the images of organisations as sites of stability and continuity, project organi-

sations ‘represent temporary groupings where multiple roles, identities, tasks and

activities intersect for a time before being dissolved and recombined into new

projects’. One feature of project- based work is that it is a culture that is charac-

terised by mobility, self- employment and a fragmented and unstable environment

(Paap, 2006; Watts, 2009b; Ness, 2012:117). This feature indicates that the actual

work is conducted by workers who are employed by the project owner, subcon-

tractors, contract workers or independent contractors (Purcell and Purcell, 1998;

Kalleberg, 2000; Green, 2006) at different hierarchical levels. Nevertheless, in modern

organisations, the activities are often organised into multiple projects (Yeow, 2014)

consisting of different disciplines, functions and organisations (Marshall, 2003:66).

Construction projects are no exception, and they are often established in multio-

rganisational coalitions to achieve their purposes (Green, 2006:232). Researchers

have investigated such changes in organisational structures and processes in terms

of, for example insourcing and outsourcing (Purcell and Purcell, 1998), the frag-

menting of work across organisational boundaries (Grimshaw et al., 2005; and the

externalising of employment relations (Kalleberg et al., 2003) and non- standard

employment relations (Kalleberg, 2000). The movement of employees from one

organisation to another organisation leads to the blurring of organisational bound-

aries, indicating that the boundaries of an organisation are ‘not spatially, but con-

tractually defined’ (Garsten, 2003:247) and that obligations, identifications and

allegiances are ‘negotiable rather than stable’ (Grimshaw et al., 2005:2). These dif-

ferent approaches emphasise the divisions of workers in different locations, organ-

isations and contractual statuses. These changes have often been explained by

increased competition in the global labour market and the need for numerical and

functional flexibility (e.g., Atkinson 1984; Reilly, 1998; Kalleberg, 2009). These flex-

ibility strategies can be mixed in different manners to achieve flexibility within

organisations (Voudouris, 2007). However, flexibility can be mutually beneficial for

employers and employees (Reilly, 1998). As a consequence of these strategies, the

organisation is divided into a core of employees and a periphery of workers with

non- standard employment. Nevertheless, there are no clear- cut divisions between

what can be characterised as good or bad jobs (Kalleberg, 2013). However, such

flexible work arrangements can lead to new forms of inequalities between workers

(Garsten, 2003) and can involve ‘overt and suppressed conflicts as well as prag-

matic elements of cooperation’ (Grimshaw et al., 2005:2). The division of labour

also has gendered implications. In terms of occupations, hierarchies and power

relations, the mechanisms of gender segregation in the workplace have been chang-

ing very slowly. The construction industry is no exception to this tendency. As

increasing numbers of operations across industries have become redefined as project-

based, little critical attention has been directed toward the implications of this

development for both organisations and employees (Hodgson, 2002:803) or for the

lived realities of the construction industry’s workforce (Green, 2006:233). Therefore,

consistent with Eriksson- Zetterquist and Knights (2004:192), we suggest that it is

important to ‘provide a gender analysis of job segregation’ and an analysis of ‘the

exclusion of women from the technological arena’. We argue that the externalisation

of employment relations in project work can affect, challenge and change existing

power relations, organisational practices and gender relations in organisations.

Our aim is to investigate the gendered implications of the externalisation of

technological work in the construction industry. Does the externalisation of tech-

nological work increase women’s opportunities in the construction industry or

result in increased segregation between male and female workers?