Making the business case for more women architects

Women represent about 43 percent of architectural school graduates in the U.S., but only about 20 percent of licensed architects and 17 percent of principals and partners are women, according to industry statistics.

Those disparities arent doing any favors for architectural firms, according to experts who spoke Tuesday morning at an American Institute of Architects event in Minneapolis.

Its been shown in study after study that companies with a higher proportion of women in top management perform better, said Amy Kalar, a health care architect with Minneapolis-based HGA and co-founder of the AIA Minnesota Women in Architecture Committee.

Kalar and other experts at the AIA Minnesota convention made the business case for bringing more women into architecture and encouraging women to stick with the profession.

The industry has made strides in diversity. According to the American Institute of Architects, about 17 percent of AIA members are women, up from 9 percent in 2000.

But women are still under-represented in leadership roles, even though women have steadily made up about 42 percent of the graduating classes at architecture schools in the Twin Cities since the mid-1990s, Karal said.

A number of factors are holding women back in architecture and other professions, including an unconscious cultural bias, the double burden of career and family obligations and lack of mentors and networking opportunities, Kalar said.

A March 2012 survey of women architects, published by ArchDaily.com, found that 80 percent of women think having children puts them at a disadvantage, and that 48 percent believe they would get paid more if they were men.

Men typically mentor other men and the lack of women in senior leadership roles results in fewer mentorship opportunities for up-and-coming women architects, according to Kalar.

Architecture isnt the only profession that presents challenges for women.

See the article here:
Making the business case for more women architects