Английский язык для студентов строительных специальностей

SUPPLEMENTARY READING | 283

Women in civil engineering.

Just as nursing is frequently criticised for being predominandy female, so engineering is criticised for being predominantly male. Women now represent around 56% of all home university applicants, but civil engineering does not reflect this. In 1994, 11% of the home applicants to civil engineering were women, 15% in 2000 and 13% in 2006. Here it is more of a horizontal line than a sigmoid curve.

One obvious barrier to women entering engineering is the gender bias in A-level subjects: in 2007 women formed 69% of the candidates in English but only 22% in physics and 40% in maths, this last showing a small but steady increase recently. Other reasons why women are not attracted to engineering, and to civil engineering in particular, have been discussed elsewhere.

A recent survey by Atkins suggested that fears about unequal pay and career opportunities are still prevalent in construction and deter women from entering. In 2003, around 38% of the students entering architectural studies, but only 13% of the architectural profession as a whole, were women. This discrepancy was not attributed to a poor career choice or a lack of academic or practical ability, but to the failure of the profession to retain women.

Some of the reasons women leave could also affect men. These include low pay, long and inflexible or non-family-friendly working hours, macho culture, sidelining, unequal pay, sexism and lack of returner training after maternity leave. Recommendations to counter this include embedding of gender equality in universities' curricula, inclusion of equal-opportunities practice in the professional bodies' codes of practice, more affordable and flexible continuing professional development, mentoring and advisory or helpline support.

Many civil engineering companies have adopted more flexible, family-friendly working patterns and benefits that are no doubt appreciated by all employees. Nevertheless, the industry is still male-dominated and relatively unattractive to women. It is, of course, perfectly reasonable if women decide that they do not want to be engineers after having had access to good careers advice, and perhaps

having taken part in one of the many experiential activities on offer from universities and industry. It is disappointing if they are deterred from entering the profession through ignorance of what it is really like or unintentional discrimination once they get there. However, everyone agrees that engineering needs to recruit the best young minds — and half of these belong to women.

Conclusion.

Civil engineering is in better health now than in May 2003. The profession is more visible than it was, the decline in university applicants has reversed, graduate shortages combined with a high workload means employment and starting salaries are relatively good, and most engineers are fairly happy in their work.

However, civil engineering is a notoriously "boom and bust" industry, and one of narrow profit margins. The danger is that the next downturn in workload will reduce salaries again and re-establish a macho long-hours culture at the expense of many of the flexible, family-friendly working practices that have been adopted. This can only result in the profession regaining its "unhappy" tag with a relatively low status, a poor image and recruitment and retention problems.

The climatic extremes of the summer of 2007, whether a blip of nature or a precursor of global warming, have brought to the public's attention the problems of flood protection, drainage, water supplies, sanitation and transportation systems. There have been few better opportunities for the civil engineering profession to present itself as the key provider of the essential services that have so long been taken for granted. Civil engineering is not about the past, it is about the future, and civil engineers can make a difference.

The time to ensure the future is when things are going well and the high point of the sigmoid curve has not yet been reached. By the time the peak has passed it is too late. The profession should aim to maintain into the future the progress that has already been made, continue to improve the areas that are still unsatisfactory and give some thought to new initiatives that might be introduced to enhance further both the image and the reality of civil engineering.

(New Civil Engineer International, November, 2008)