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Shireen Chilcott

Shireen with Zeus

Thesis Working Title

Architects, town planners, electricians and plumbers: where and why does the occupational pipeline leak?

Research Interests

My research interests are wide ranging and include; gender and employment, economics, gender, age and social class inequalities, Feminisms, poverty and the construction industry. My interest in the construction industry is founded on two refurbishment projects I became involved with. I am also interested in the way the labour market is structured and how occupational segregation by gender restricts women's career progression both vertically and horizontally. I am particularly interested in the work of Marx, Bourdieu, Haraway, Oakley, Kanter, Cockburn, Wajcman, Paula England, Tony Tam and Gary S Becker.

My PhD thesis begins by tracking the gender composition of workers across architecture, town planning, electrical work and plumbing and it shows that women have made inroads into the higher skilled architecture and town planning but remain a minority of electricians and plumbers. This is interesting because there is a tendency for women to be concentrated in low skilled, low paid occupations. Next, my thesis tests different candidate explanations, including specialist human capital theory and discriminatory and harassment theories, against architecture, town planning, electrical work and plumbing, in order to account for women's withdrawal or continuation along the occupational pipeline. The term the occupational pipeline is a metaphor which I have utilised to depict women's career trajectories across various life-stages (i.e. entry to stage 3). I highlight that very few women enter the electrical work and plumbing occupational pipelines and that a high percentage of female entrants withdraw, at stage 1, prior to completing their qualifications. Conversely, in architecture and town planning, I show that female students are increasingly entering these occupation pipelines and reaching stage 1. I endeavour to account for these and other gender differences across architecture, town planning electrical work and plumbing, by drawing on my candidate explanations together with my research findings.

Recent conference presentations:

Chilcott, S. (2010) Planners and plumbers: where does the pipeline leak? Lancaster Sociology Summer Conference, June 2010, Lancaster.

Chilcott, S. (2009) Why are there so few women in construction occupations? Lancaster Sociology Summer Conference, Lancaster.