As it’s Women in Construction Week, our associate director, and head of the planning and architecture department, Natasha Blackmore da Silva raises the profile of PPE in the industry. Specifically the lack of PPE which fits women properly.
For people working in the construction and property industry Personal Protective Equipment, more commonly known as PPE, is the main protection from injury.
It is an essential part of any construction worker’s wardrobe and in some instances can be the difference between a minor injury and death. So often though for women, it is too big, too long, too loose, too tight and in general not fit for purpose as safety equipment. Why is it that getting PPE that fits is still such a challenge for women?
Whilst 16% of those working in the construction industry (ONS figures as of June 2023) are women, the highest percentage since official records began, the ability to find PPE that fits correctly has not greatly improved.
Most manufacturers offer items in male or unisex sizes only. Unisex should mean fit for all, but generally it is still designed around the measurements of a man. Even with brands supposedly offering women’s sizes, it can be much more difficult to find them on the website and the type/colour availability is much less expansive.
In the last few years, the number of manufacturers and brands making inclusive PPE has grown, but this has not solved the problem completely.
Cost and availability are still big issues. We have all seen pink razors in supermarket aisles costing more than their blue male counterparts, but does this discrepancy also have to transfer into protective clothing? The answer is unfortunately yes!
The so called Pink Tax is a term coined for the tendency for products marketed specifically towards women to be more expensive than those marketed towards men.
In the construction industry, bulk buying PPE and other branded clothing is the norm, however with less than a quarter of the workforce being female, the likelihood is the orders for female fitting clothing items are going to be smaller.
To mitigate the production costs of manufacturing these smaller orders, the individual cost per unit for the purchaser increases.
In many cases, smaller companies struggle to stomach the additional costs of providing appropriate PPE for all.
On top of this, some manufacturers will not even sell items unless a minimum threshold is met. This means even on websites which do provide the right size clothing, being able to purchase it may still not be possible.
I acknowledge things are improving albeit slowly. When I first started at Sheldon Bosley Knight back in 2015, women’s sizes were rarely offered, and I had to make do with a ‘small’ male size which dwarfed me from head to toe.
Now, I am able to find and purchase an ‘x-small’ women’s high-viz jacket that actually fits, but I am aware my jacket cost substantially more than the male equivalent, even before the additional costs of company branding.
This is not acceptable, and manufacturers need to realise the number of women working in construction will continue to rise and they are going to have to find a way to produce the necessary PPE to accommodate them. In 2024, women should not be struggling to find appropriate PPE which, is not only fit for purpose, but actually fits.
