women in architecture

This introduction is extracted from: Diversity in the Workplace by Deborah Singerman

For full details of this paper please download the PDF: Diversity in the workplace Australia

The National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) began an International Women's Day Scholarship in 2009 to support women in industry to do original research and publish it, as the association says, “to enable positive change in the industry”.

Workplace

The pursuit of equality for women in architecture is an uphill, demanding, slow task, lit by individual triumphs but by any conventional measures not unreasonably described as thankless.

Take the statistics. In 2004, a career progression survey of women members of the Australian Institute of Architects (formerly preceded by Royal) investigated why “approximately 40 per cent of architecture students are female yet the number of registered female directors of firms is around 1 per cent”.

This still definitive study from then Queensland University of Technology's Dr Paula Whitman generated considerable interest. Almost half the women members nationwide responded — almost half of whom again had children with 70 per cent saying this had had a significant or very significant impact on their careers.