When walking past construction sites in India, it is not uncommon to see an array of women at work. With saris tucked into their hips, flowers in their hair and a certain grit that is undeniably empowering, these women are not on-site performing domestic duties as one would typically think. Rather, they are carrying concrete, passing bricks and mixing mortar, forming the very bones of the buildings that make up the fabric of India. 

For centuries, it has been the norm for almost all construction sites across Australia, and many western countries, to be male-dominated. While the last few years have seen a slow and welcome shift towards women entering the on-site workforce, it appears there are many lessons that can be learned through looking at the role that women labourers have played in countries such as India across many centuries. Through talking with Shreenu Mukherjee, who is the co-director of Delhi-based architecture practice, The Vrindavan Project, we can start to understand exactly what the role of women on Indian construction sites is – and, perhaps most importantly, what Australia can learn from them. 

With many Indians employed across agricultural sectors, their occupations are seasonal, with income being unpredictable and not necessarily stable. While the government of India is one of the single largest overseers of farmland, its urban construction industry is a rapidly growing domain with ever-increasing opportunities for Indian labourers. Shreenu shares how, like many contemporary Indian architecture practices, The Vrindavan Project “tends to collaborate with local contractors who usually recruit workers from their own villages. These labourers and skilled masons often arrive on-site as family units, sometimes even bringing their children along with them.”

The construction industry is built around a general understanding that, during certain times of the year, labourers will return to their villages for harvest season. With this flexibility factored into construction schedules, many labouring families have an ability to live a dual life. “With low literacy rates and high wealth inequality, any kind of job in construction is viewed as a bonus,” says Shreenu, who adds that “any amount of extra income is always welcome for women in India.”

“There is a distinct sense of the ‘dignity in labour’ that women on construction sites wear as a badge of honour,” Shreenu adds. Almost always permanent members of the construction team, these women contribute consistently throughout the course of any project, while single men are generally more migratory and are moved around from one site to another by their employers. It is the permanence of women across construction sites that fosters a sense of home and family within each project team.

“The archaic caste system also has a role to play in confining women to certain stations, where even the presence of institutional reservations does not actually provide better opportunities to those less fortunate on a mass scale,” says Shreenu. “Most often, women emerge from rural parts of our country or migrate from lesser developed states. At times younger girls are recruited by their mothers who also work on-site, and are under strict supervision at all times.”

Unlike western construction sites, women quickly find themselves in leadership roles, while also providing safety and security for emerging female labourers in what would otherwise be a male-dominated workforce. Quite often, male family members of younger female labourers are also on-site. Through Shreenu’s observations, she describes this dynamic on construction sites as a “social learning environment that functions like a micro-village, which trains women in navigating not only labouring work, but also community.”  

When looking at the development opportunities for women in western construction industries, the scene is incredibly different. Georgia Byers is a construction project manager at an Australian construction company, Simbuilt. She shares that many “government and industry initiatives have been focused on employing, recruiting and retaining women in the construction industry, which has assisted the increase in number of women on larger government funded sites.” However, outside of this, there remains little means for the organic entry of women into this workforce. On western construction sites, Georgia says that “women are determined, driven, resilient, passionate and confident. Women who enter the construction industry know what they are getting themselves into. In such a male-dominated industry, women often feel outnumbered and unheard; the nature of this requires women to be confident and outspoken.”

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Reflecting on her own experience, Georgia notes that as she continues to mature in the industry, she has become more comfortable and confident within her knowledge of construction. “I have been able to speak up confidently which has helped me earn respect from trades,” she says. However, “it remains unfortunate that women have to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding more than men do,” Georgia notes. 

Further education in trades provides Australian women an opportunity for career progression and to earn more money. Traditionally, Georgia notes how “trades worked on the tools over decades in order to learn and improve at their work. These days it’s more common for people in labouring roles to attend TAFE or vocational training from the beginning of their careers alongside working, so that technical and practical knowledge are formed concurrently.”

In India, only women employed by large-scale corporate developers may be provided with additional training and workshops to help elevate their positions within construction organisations. Unlike western countries, investing in education and career progression is not something most smaller scale Indian contractors are keen on undertaking. “As a developing nation with a society that has limited exposure to greater possibilities, women in our construction labour force do not seem to aspire to desk-based roles either,” adds Shreenu, describing how the idea of working at an office is possibly intimidating to many Indian women. 

In India, women “carry heavy objects including bricks and cement bags, balanced perfectly on their heads while deftly navigating dangerously uneven surfaces, scaling ladders and climbing up scaffoldings,” shares Shreenu, highlighting how the toughness and heavy-lifting associated with males is a highly westernised concept. Traditionally, trades and labouring roles in western countries are stereotyped as a ‘man’s job’ due to the physicality of the work. This notion is still being broken down within the Australian construction industry today, Georgia says. With many females tucked away in office-based construction roles, it seems that there is a lot to learn from the family-spirit and integral roles of Indian women that have been embedded in construction sites across India for centuries. 

Read about this project in Rajasthan