Meet Tila Puri, Kamala Budamagar, and Sushma Magar, female construction workers engaged in the upgradation of the Nagdhunga-Naubise-Mugling (NNM) road corridor, a lifeline for connectivity and trade within Nepal and with its neighboring countries.
As masons, they break stones, mix mortar and stack concrete along dusty bends of the highway, taking on the most physically laborious tasks of the construction work.
The three women have worked in the construction sector for over a decade, migrating across various sites with their families, wherever opportunities arise.
“In the Nagdhunga-Naubise-Mugling site, we receive equal pay,” says Sushma. “We have seen differing pay for men and women in other works sites. Maybe that is why there are fewer women in this sector.”
Despite the equal pay and provisions that include skill development, and gender sensitive safety and sanitary needs, women make up less than five per cent of the total construction workers in three contracts of the NNM road project site.
Most women work as masons, support other labours, and serve as cooks in labor camps. They can also be seen managing the flow of traffic at construction sites.
Minimal participation of women across Nepal’s transport sector
According to the Nepal Labour Force Survey 2017-18, female labour force participation rate is only 26.3 percent.
The share of female labor force participation in the construction sector is about 11 percent. Most women are engaged through informal employment, unprotected by legal or regulatory frameworks.
The lack of women’s participation in road construction in Nepal can be attributed to perceived gender norms and their limited access to formal employment opportunities within the sector.
Road construction work is largely viewed as a man’s job. The nature of work, which includes driving heavy equipment like tipper trucks, rollers, graders, excavators, and lifting heavy loads, is associated with and predominently occupied by men.
The added dimension of societal expectations and judgment regarding kinds of labour perceived fit for women could further discourage women from participating in road construction sector.
Further, the linear nature of the road infrastructure requires frequent travel to various work sites or even staying in labor camps, which can be challenging for women, especially for women with care duties.
Due to the informality of the sector, many women work without formal contracts. Informal employment can impede women from accessing equal pay opportunities, safe and sanitary working conditions, and social protection services.
Women are also significantly underrepresented in the engineering sector as well as institutions that manage Nepal’s road networks. Female engineers comprise only six per cent of the Department of Road’s technical staff, with only one female “class 1” government officer assigned in the entirety of Nepal’s road sector.
Boosting female labour force participation and inclusion
The World Bank Group’s International Development Association (IDA) supports increasing women’s participation in institutions that manage, develop, and construct Nepal’s roads and ensuring infrastructure development addresses women’s needs in Nepal’s transport sector.
The World Bank Group’s International Development Association (IDA) supports increasing women’s participation in institutions that manage, develop, and construct Nepal’s roads and ensuring infrastructure development addresses women’s needs in Nepal’s transport sector.
The IDA-financed Strategic Road Connectivity and Trade Improvement Project (SRCTIP) contributes to expanding opportunities for women’s employment in the construction sector and address challenges associated with gender norms that disproportionately affect women to gain skilled employment in a male-dominated sector.
Along the NNM road corridor, the IDA-funded SRCTIP is providing construction-related skills trainings such as plumbing and scaffolding to 150 women from local communities with further vision to support the placement of 25 women in construction jobs.
To create a conducive environment for women to thrive in the road construction sector, the SRCTIP ensures equal pay, occupational health and safety, and has mobilized an intermediary service provider to undertake capacity development and awareness raising Gender-Based Violence issues, including child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse/Sexual Harassment (SEA/SH).
The project has also supported setting up survivor centric case management and specific SEA/SH grievance procedures.
Likewise, the IDA-financed Second Bridges Improvement and Maintenance Program (BIMP II) is promoting women's participation at the institutional level by sourcing more female engineers, enhancing their technical skills, and elevating their roles in the development of Nepal's road networks.
The Design and Advanced Technology Cell (DATC) within the Bridge Branch, created under BIMP II, is hiring and training a cohort of young engineers for the development of advanced design bridges, ensuring the inclusion of at least 33 percent or more female engineers.
This initiative – being conducted in partnership with Nepal’s national universities and construction industries – envisions an increasing the participation of women in Nepal's road infrastucture development.
“Through DATC, we are training 42 engineers to take part in the design process of advanced bridges and almost half of them are women.” says Malika Awal, a women engineer overseeing BIMP II at the Bridge Branch, Department of Roads. “This is a good achievement as before this, only few female engineers were part of this process.”
