On both sides of the Atlantic there is a significant pay gap between men and women in architecture. In April 2019, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) issued new guidelines as it emerged that the pay gap in architecture is 15-percent in the UK. According to statistics from 2017, the pay gap is similar in the US, where it is 14-percent, with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) releasing similar guidelines in 2018.
What are the reasons for this, and why is it such a controversial subject?
Architecture may be an industry built on universal public good, but behind the closed doors of offices there remains a great imbalance: equal pay for men and women. In the United States “Narrow The Gap” reported that women in architecture make 86 cents for every dollar that a man makes. That’s a 14-percent pay gap, which is illegal according to the Equal Pay Act, first introduced by President Kennedy in 1963. The UK introduced a similar act in 1970, but according to the UK government, there remains a pay gap of 15-percent for women in architecture. In 2017 the UK government made a law that required practices of more than 250 employees to submit a Gender Pay Gap Report every year, in an attempt to hold large firms to account. In 2019 The Architect’s Journal reported on these findings and found that the pay gap improved slightly since 2018 from 16-percent to 15-percent, however, it maintained that “at least two-thirds of the highest earners were men.”
Architecture may be an industry built on universal public good, but behind the closed doors of offices there remains a great imbalance: equal pay for men and women.
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) released a Guide for Equitable Practice in 2018 and The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) also released a similar document in 2019. The RIBA document states that a practice trying to improve their gender pay gap may hire more women in junior roles with the hope of promoting them to senior positions in the future. Although it warns that “if this implies recruiting them from other practices this will not improve the overall situation for women in senior roles in the profession.” This alludes to the idea that there aren’t enough senior female architects to go around. Is there any truth in this? There may be.
There were fewer female graduates in the past as the RIBA document points out: “In the time period between 1979 and 2015, the percentage of female architecture students at university has increased from 18-percent to 49-percent,” but one could argue that a female graduate of architecture in 1979 is now of retirement age. RIBA seems to be condoning the notion that an architectural practice can’t appear to be sexist if they have a few token females in their senior staff, as the lack of women is due to factors beyond their control. However, the AIA document disputes the claims of the RIBA document, stating:
“Wage gaps will not go away on their own. Looking at the gender wage gap for women as compared to men, in the United States it was near 60-percent in the 1960s; today it is 80-percent, with most progress in closing the gap occurring between 1980–98 but slowing considerably since then. Closing education and experience gaps played a large role in that convergence but no longer account substantially for the gender wage gap. Currently, the gap is smallest at the start of careers and grows largest later in careers at top pay scales.”
It seems that these sister institutes do not agree that the lack of women in architecture is due to a lack of graduates in the past.
Someone who sees no excuse for the pay gap is Jeanne Gang, Time Magazine’s most influential architect of 2019. She closed the pay gap in her practice in 2019, and told Dezeen: “We should start to think about asking people to declare if they have closed their pay gap, the same way we declare the 2030 challenge for the environment for example… Maybe that would put a little more pressure to close the gap." She goes on to say "It's doable… It's just simple and it's a math problem." Gang takes no notice of the idea that there aren’t enough women available for senior positions.
What are the reasons that are women paid less? There are a variety of answers. In the RIBA report, they recommend that “workable measures that can be put in place by practices to enable the women they employ to stay in the profession and reach senior levels, thereby closing the Gender Pay Gap”, thus, highlighting the fact that a major problem facing women in architecture is staying in the profession. The RIBA report highlights two primary reasons for Gender Pay Gaps in architecture::
“It is worth noting that there are two primary reasons for the median Gender Pay Gaps reported by architecture practices, and professional practices more generally:
However, the AIA report again makes a clearer case than the RIBA for outright sexism. It states:
“Average salaries for men are higher than women’s at every year of experience, with average starting pay difference within a few thousand dollars, then increasingly diverging to approximately a 15-percent pay gap in late career. For both men and women, earnings is most commonly cited as integral to career success, and lack of compensation (in the form of pay, promotions, opportunities, professional development, and meaningful work) is the predominant reason why both men and women leave jobs in architecture or leave architecture altogether.”
Although the RIBA report skirts the issue, the AIA report directly attributes women leaving the profession to sustained demoralization and low pay.
Would a way to solve this involve publishing salaries to foster a culture of frank openness, or would it create even more rivalry between colleagues? [...] Transparent salaries would probably not make for a harmonious office, but secrecy could ultimately impact those at a disadvantage. It is up to firms to take responsibility for their employees and adhere to the law —they must mind the gap.
Would a way to solve this involve publishing salaries to foster a culture of frank openness, or would it create even more rivalry between colleagues? I spoke to fellow females in architecture and the consensus was that while they had never been aware that a man in the same position was getting a higher salary than them, most suspected that there was some sort of pay imbalance. Transparent salaries would probably not make for a harmonious office, but secrecy could ultimately impact those at a disadvantage. It is up to firms to take responsibility for their employees and adhere to the law —they must mind the gap.
Paul Finch, writing in The Architect’s Journal, controversially claims: “The so-called ‘gender pay gap’ is a form of voodoo statistical analysis that a graduate profession should be ashamed to be associated with.” His grumble is that it is only the practices that have more than 250 employees that were included in the study, which is valid, however, the rest of his argument is shaky.
Have you ever walked into medium to smaller architectural practices and noticed that they had a significantly different gender balance to large firms? Finch wonders why anyone should “pay attention to the shock, [and the] horror stories” as a man, to whom a pay gap would be beneficial. Furthermore, he goes on to say that “There is only one real measure of whether women are being treated equally in a practice: whether they are paid roughly the same as men doing a comparable job with comparable experience and qualifications.” While a 15-percent difference may seem to be “roughly the same,” over the years it amounts to a large sum of money as established by the AIA report. No equality law will permit anything to be “roughly the same”.
He accuses the government’s exposure of the gender pay gap in large practices as “people and organizations with an axe to grind”. Finch may be controversial for controversy’s sake, but as this article was published in a major industry magazine, it is reasonable to assume that his opinion is not solitary
Contrary to popular belief, women ask for just as many pay raises as men do, according to the Harvard Business Review. But they are not necessarily receiving those pay raises. Could salary transparency solve this? More power can be given to women to build a case for a pay raise when there are quantifiable salaries from colleagues available to compare. The study, in disproving the notion that women may ask for pay raises less often than men refuted commonly believed factors such as women having “shorter lengths of job tenure or [behaving] differently than men when they have dependent children,” thus pointing the cause towards inherent sexism.
Contrary to popular belief, women ask for just as many pay raises as men do, according to the Harvard Business Review. But they are not necessarily receiving those pay raises. Could salary transparency solve this?
Although this study was conducted across many industries, architecture is historically a male-dominated industry with a solid track record of stark sexism. The AIA report reinforces the idea that women do not get pay raises when they ask and offers further reason for this:
“...research shows that traits associated with each gender are rewarded unequally in the workplace, due to biased perception of personality, risk-taking, competitiveness, negotiation, etc. Men are typically rewarded for exhibiting traits traditionally considered masculine, but when women exhibit these same traits, they are not rewarded but are often penalized for them.”
The 2019 Architect’s Journal Student Survey, which asked various questions to over 450 students, found that in architecture firms 40-percent of women had experienced gender discrimination as opposed to only 2-percent of men. Does this discrimination translate into pay? Most likely.
The architecture world is no stranger to #metoo scandals, with the infamous Harvard “Shitty Men in Architecture” list and the Richard Meier scandal. A post-#MeToo study from The University of Houston, which was also reported by The Guardian in the UK, highlighted perhaps another problem facing women in architecture. The study revealed that ever since the #MeToo movement broke in 2017, there has been an increase in women being excluded from various professions in 2019. Shocking takeaways from the study are that in 2019, 21-percent of men would be “more reluctant to hire women for jobs that require close interpersonal interactions with men (for example, traveling)”, compared to 2018 where the figure was 15-percent.
As all architects know the profession often entails site visits, client meetings and sometimes trips abroad. Another statistic from this study that is applicable to architecture is that “men, in general, will be more reluctant to have a one-on-one personal meeting with women with no others present” which, staggeringly, 41-percent of men agreed with in 2018. Architecture is, of course, a profession in which good mentors are essential. Perhaps the problem in the future will not just be, “can we get women to stay in the profession,” it’ll be, “can women even enter the profession in the first place.”
The gender pay gap in architecture is a curious thing. Well respected industry bodies such as the RIBA and the AIA have not come to the same conclusions, as is something which is thought to have many causes and it is often difficult to quantify. Although various measures to publicize statistics and hold firms to account show slow progress, there is the apparent threat of a #MeToo backlash making it harder for women to enter the profession.
An absence of salary transparency hurts those least likely to gain a promotion, even if studies show that women ask for a pay raise just as often as men. Time Magazine’s 2019 Architect of the Year Jeanne Gang thinks that there’s no excuse for firms not taking responsibility to close the pay gap. It’s been around half a century since equal pay acts were passed in the US and the UK, so we have to ask the question, why does the pay gap still exist in our industry?
Eleanor Marshall is a writer and architectural designer based in London and Scotland. She has worked in public realm and industrial design offices in the US and the UK, and with city transport authorities in Edinburgh, London, Milan, Moscow and NYC. Her areas of practice are transport ...
13 Comments
Thanks for the insight. Architecture as a whole has to evolve from old mindsets. If a woman has the same qualifications as a man does, she should be paid his same salary. Simple as that.
Another uninformed article about how the "gender pay gap" isn't related to the different choices men and women make in their daily lives. The issue is much more complicated then your typical, "it must be discrimination!" Give me a break.
One of the many well-informed bodies referenced in this article, The American Institute of Architects, states that "Average salaries for men are higher than women’s at every year of experience, with average starting pay difference within a few thousand dollars."
Eleanor, the adjusted wage gap is well understood by anyone willing to look at it
salaries should be totally transparent. It may not solve the underlying problems, still worth it to make the difference an obvious one. Employers can then decide how to justify their decisions.
Canada has the sunshine list, which shows the salary of every government employee making more than $100,000/year in each province. It means if you are studying architecture you can check how much your prof is being paid. I like this. More interesting, the list was used to highlight gender wage gaps. Cant say that this has or will change anything, but shining light on a problem is hardly a bad thing. Only the people who are afraid of confronting the truth of their lives have any reason to complain or to say we shouldn't talk about it because it is too complicated.
oh, and Jeanne Gang is simply awesome and inspiring.
I've started thinking long and hard about this as a business owner who was a freelancer who was a salary employee who was a minimum wage earner once - as a white male (straight) [fucking stupid I have to qualify, but statement was made [[fucking stupid to not know qualifying is probably some deep seeded Kantian categorical imperative shit by the "males"]] see the brackets go less here, we're in the higher argument, a man thing, this philosophy logical thing]. - I'm man therefore I am right.
written by a woman...Kant understand you ? (bad redneck joke translated to high-brow philosophy here, in 'merica the term is very offensive, the one I replaced with Kant...)
I digress...
A profession that demands unreasonable hours for unreasonable clients demands a "soldier".
A "soldier" has a duty to their tasks for a "greater good". In the world of architecture, the "greater good" is your firm or the old fart's name on the door. A "soldier" just grinds through everything, disregards their personal life, disregards empathy, disregards family - Country, God, Family. Country = architecture.
You abandon all faith, all culture for one group of "thoughts" on architecture. You literally think "form follows function" is a mantra, a reason to wake up in the morning, even though an extremely hot loving woman is laying next to you that just wants to have fun - [FUCK FUN].
[image:lmgtfy]
This sort of abandonment of all things, is really only something a "man" could commit to. Men can just walk away from any emotional commitment, like having a kid - abort - walk out the door! [mathematically that's a ridiculous double standard isn't it? Men walk-out and you're the killer]
A "soldier" doesn't get sick, doesn't need time off and sure as hell can't have empathy for anyone but the cause.
This type of dedication is a "male" thang. If I give a positive metaphor example you'll think I'm making an argument for masculinity, so let's go negative - how many "terrorists" have been women? how many women you know strap a bomb on their back, blow themselves up and others for a "cause".
If Philip Johnson really had that much money in Aluminum as I was told, wasn't "modernism" a good "cause" for his pocket, just like the Industrial War Complex is good for every rich golfin' angry man?
But why would a woman want to be a "soldier" for some other man's "thought" cause?
My grandma was the most human person I ever met, and being human was giving a shit about the people around you.
Hey look! that Brutalist architecture looks like the theory of Corb in the instagram pic!!??!
Grandma would of said - cold! I don't get it Chrissy, where is the carpet where is the rug? where is the damn humanity! Then I cracked a bud and said Grandma is it cool I'm having a beer with you, and she said Chrissy - I'm just glad you're here. Put that in a drawing Howard Roark! [Ayn Rand was a woman, did you know that?]
Fuck the money.
Give us some female architecture. I'm tired of my heartless all concept bullshit.
I just want to know, how does that look?
We've like pigeonholed ourselves in architecture. We left no room for a species I don't understand but know I need to listen to.
Please make architecture feminine. I'm over my stock.
- Chris, like licensed in 5 states [apparently didn't pay me CT fee, sorting out, but New Haven you next, I be there soon]
I know I write a lot crass shit here under various names, but thank you for keeping a gem. having an idea brew, will be more honest (i.e. reals names and daughter, she said she was cool with it), sorry Q, I'll give Paul some free material (my brain) to publish...wondering how many of my free ideas panned out, noted a few lately (money is for pussies)
Mob mentality. Peer pressure. Insecurity. These are the issues that keep male leadership stuck in the past. I only know from personal experience and anecdotal evidence. I witnessed a firm of 10 men, 8 women, hire a 9th woman only to hear a VP at the staff meeting state out loud "we have to stop hiring women, we don't want too many", to no laughter, only nervous chatter and a subject change. That same VP a year later verbally abused a woman in the firm as he fired her. Within that same year, in the great recession, the firm office started laying off people, a single woman first, then a married woman whose husband kept his job there, another woman whose fiancee kept his job there, and a man whose wife kept her job there (3 couples worked there), only because they didn't like him and he did not finish his masters and could not become licensed, but his wife could. Then another woman was laid off. The two men whose wives got laid off decided to leave and move their families out of state, shocking the firm principal. Then the VP verbally abused another woman, generating a lawsuit and an NDA as she left the state to avoid his influence over her career. The firm was down to 2 women, the rest men, until the office had to close.
Why did the principal (male) not intervene in the abuse and lay off women first, even though many had seniority and more experience over the men who stayed? The VP was a stereotypical Harvey Weinstein power hungry male who used his place to control the actions of the men to get his way over the office and the women. The VP still has control of other careers due to his abuse of power in the profession, which everyone in the area is aware of, does not talk about, and allows it to continue. As is true of many manipulators, many would never guess he was like this, "he seems like such a nice guy".
I suspect this is not a unique occurrence. Of the 9 women, only 2 are still in architecture in the same state. 4 others are not even in architecture (44%) and the rest scattered to where I do not know their career status. Of my female friends in architecture, half are no longer in architecture, 15-20+ years after beginning their careers. Alcoholics, abusers, all master manipulators who manage to keep their control and keep women down. The only reason there are not fewer women in architecture is due to the fact that of course not all men are like this. But the ones that exist manage to infect others and continue to abuse their power.
I think the reason why women architects are not paid as much is because they just don't get the same amount of work that the men get. The developers, whether they be mega property owners are male. and if its an eminent domain project, where a city is redeveloping a slum or waterfront property or 'affordable' housing, the people that are making these decisions, and hiring architecture firms are mostly men, andt herefore hiring mostly men. Unless women get into a family run business, they are less likely to get the same, grand projects that their male coworkers get. Sexism pervades everything. Whether it is architecture or acting, women get less; period.
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