Step Up for Greater Equality

Women make up 34 percent of licensed architects but are just 24 percent of firm principals and partners, according to The Business of Architecture: AIA Firm Survey Report 2024. The percentage of licensed architects identifying as female has declined two percent since 2022, while their representation in firm leadership increased just one percent since the AIA’s 2022 Firm Survey Report.

The 2024 report found that only about a third of architecture firms surveyed have policies regarding equitable pay or reducing bias in performance reviews, hiring and recruitment. The lack of attention to equality likely contributes to why women, especially women of color, are far less satisfied with their architectural careers at their current employers than white men are, as a 2021 AIA/The Center for WorkLife Law investigation into bias in the architecture profession found.

Unequal pay is one outcome of the inattention to mitigating bias. Female architects’ earnings were just 78.5 percent of their male colleagues in 2022. This reflects a greater gender disparity than in related professions like civil engineering, construction management, and landscape architecture.

Implicit bias is often unconscious, so it cannot be corrected without deliberate action. The two-thirds of architecture firms surveyed that don’t have policies in place now have an opportunity to mitigate bias. Doing so can both to level the playing field for women and offer their clients more diversity of thought.

United States Supreme Court Building - Circular Staircase, August 2017, © Gerhard Huber, under CC BY-NC 4.0+Edu

Firm leaders and decision-makers can take a free Implicit Association Test developed by a consortium of universities. The results will only be shared with the test taker, but they may reveal a need for measures to counter unconscious biases—even among the most well-intentioned people.

The AIA/The Center for WorkLife Law study includes a number of tools for interrupting biases in architecture firms. The AIA’s Guides for Equitable Practice offer additional tools for creating a more equitable workplace. Read up! The future of the profession depends on it.

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