Lack of diversity: Why are women dropping out of architecture firms?

As employers continue to modify the modern workplace, architecture is losing female talent, says expert

Lack of diversity: Why are women dropping out of architecture firms?

With employers looking to modify the workplace to fit the modern workforce, having diverse teams is important.

However, the field of architecture seems to be going in the other direction, says Kerri Sibson, regional director of Europe and Middle East, ERA-co, a placement consultancy.

“There is a lack of broader representation across the industry as a whole, which provides challenges based on the communities that we're servicing. So the more we can look to encourage wider representation within the industry, the better the places we deliver.” 

Previously, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim demanded an explanation from several top 100 companies listed on Bursa Malaysia regarding their failure to meet the 30% women participation target on their boards.

Why are there so few women in architecture?

It’s not that women are choosing not to go into the field of architecture. In fact, “female architects now make up nearly half of all architecture graduates in many countries,” notes Archo Visuals, which creates lifelike architectural renderings, citing surveys.

Sibson agrees, saying: “As a practice, it's one that attracts gender in equal proportion in the early phases.”

However, women who are already in the field are leaving, she says.

“Architecture has historically seen huge drop-off rates of women not returning to work after they've had children,” she says.

And that's because “it hasn't historically created an environment that makes that easy to achieve.”

Progress on corporate boardroom diversity appears to be slowing as fewer directors view their boards as diverse, according to the Black Corporate Directors Study.

Why are women important in architecture?

Amid the movement to bring workers back to the workplace, the office design is changing – and this change is for the better, says Sibson. 

“The interesting thing about the drive to get people back into the office, and what I think the design community is acknowledging, is that it's not just about making sure that the office is a more appealing environment.”

She says that people have found that when they were working from home and during COVID, they became more connected to their community.  And “women are more receptive to this,” she says.

When it comes to the office design itself, she says: “We need to start to [make sure] that offices don't sit in isolation; they sit in a context of a community. And so how offices start to play a bigger role within that community, and what that might look like, I think, is a really important part of the drive to get people back to the office.”

According to a previous Cisco report, 85% of employers claim most of their office space is still allocated to personal working spaces, which create individual working environments and encourage individual working habits.

Sibson also calls for a wider diversity in architecture as a whole. She emphasises that creating spaces for everyone requires diverse perspectives in design teams.

“The notion that we are creating places for everyone means, by default, everyone has to be represented in that design process.” 

Addressing retention challenges

To retain women in their workforce, employers in the architecture space need to provide flexibility to workers, says Sibson.

It’s also important to address the needs of working parents, which may include providing enough maternity and paternity leaves, she says.

It's incumbent on businesses to look internally and try and address the challenge of retaining women in the field, Sibson says.

“It's only when we get greater parity in terms of that gender divide that you will start to see places that work for everyone.”