Gender (in)equality contested: externalising employment in the construction industry

In construction and engineering, workers from different organisations work together, often on a project-by-project basis. Drawing on the theoretical framework of inequality regimes as presented by Acker (2006a), and the externalisation of employment relations presented by Kalleberg etal. (2003), this article investigates the gendered implications of the externalisation of technological work in the construction industry. The empirical material is based upon interviews and a questionnaire answered by regular employees, contracted staff and independent contractors working in the construction industry. The data reveal how non-standard employments are parts of the organising processes that produce gendered inequalities between core and peripheral workers. This finding does not suggest that peripheral work indicates poor working conditions, to be more precise, peripheral workers can be in the most privileged positions.