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Survey: 41% of young women expect to face discrimination at work

Four in 10 women in Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors poll think gender will count against them during their career

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16/10/2017 Survey: 41% of young women expect to face discrimination at work | Money | The Guardian

The building industry was singled out by young women in the survey as one of the worst oenders. Photograph: Blend Images/Rex

Phillip Inman Economics correspondent

Tuesday 25 October 2016 00.01BST

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16/10/2017 Survey: 41% of young women expect to face discrimination at work | Money | The Guardian

More than four in 10 young women believe their gender will count against them during their career, according to a survey that found only
4% of boys believe they might also face some form of career-limiting sex discrimination in the workplace.

The poll for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) reported that 41% of young women, all aged between 13 and 22, believed
discrimination would hold back their careers, more than 10 times the gure for boys.

Approximately 20% of boys not only rejected concerns they might face discrimination, they said their gender would have a positive eect
on their career, allowing them to earn more than their female counterparts.

The survey follows a series of reports showing that women face a higher risk of harassment and discrimination at work. A recent TUC
study found that more than half of all women and nearly two-thirds of women aged 18 to 24 said they have experienced sexual
harassment at work.

Workers recently won the right to lodge a sex discrimination claim against Asda that could force the supermarket chain to adjust the pay of
many of its 130,000 shop oor sta and make back payments to those involved in the case going back to 2002, at an estimated cost of up
to 100m.

The building industry was singled out by young women as one of the worst oenders that was ripe for change, according to the survey.

A quarter of young women said that employing a diverse range of people was the most important factor when thinking about a company
they would work for. They said it would take a female chief executive or a successful female prime minister to turn the situation around.

The Rics chief executive, Sean Tompkins, said the survey showed that senior executives needed to take responsibility for changing
attitudes. Tompkins said his rst move would be to avoid speaking on conference platforms that only featured men, which he said was
common in the building industry.

There is a big responsibility on male executives to understand the unconscious biases that discriminate against women and use that
knowledge to change the culture in their organisations, he said.

We are starting to see a rise in the number of young women in the sector, but not necessarily emerging as spokespeople, he said.

Only 13% of qualied surveyors in the UK are women compared with a 15% global total of Rics members. Two in 10 trainees are women,
globally compared with just 17% in the UK.

Topics
Discrimination at work
Equal pay
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Work & careers

Gender
news

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