Problems and Prospects for Women in Estate Management Profession in Nigeria

Problems and Prospects for Women in Estate Management Profession in Nigeria.

Abstract

Problems and prospects for women in Estate Management practice in Abuja real estate industry were investigated in this paper to spur effective women participation in the profession.

Using data derived from survey of 75 firms and 24 principal partners, the study found that women constitutes 30% of the industry’s workforce and 36% of the women workforce operate as clerks.

Discrimination on the basis of assignment of tasks, difficulty in combining marriage/associated responsibilities with practice, doubt of women competence, failure of women professionals to promote women interest among other are problems impeding effective women participation.

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Women performance three decades ago fell short the performance of men with margin of 150% and 500% for agency and 60% and 600% for property management but this gap has reduced significantly to 2.7% and 4.7% for agency and 6.6% and 44.2% for property management.

Valuation and project management have low participation as only 1% to 5% of the women undertake the tasks.

The profession is affirmed prospective by 80% of respondents, formation of association of women in real estate is therefore recommended to promote effective women participation through conferences, sensitization, mentorship, networking and lobbying for even representation of women in the Nigeria real estate sector.

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Introduction

Background Of Study

According to Lynn Zuckerman Gray (Cornell University, 2014), women by natural inclination are great problem solvers, often detail oriented, multitask well and have strong intuition about people and their decision making processes.

These are outstanding qualities that are supposed to give women an edge over men in the real estate profession but history of discrimination against women has resulted in their underrepresentation in the profession.

The underrepresentation of women in the profession is a global phenomenon. The participation rate of women in UK real estate industry is just 11% (Hirigoyen, 2014).

In USA women brokers dominate the residential real estate market with participation rate of 57% (Polgar, 2014) but this success story in the residential real estate is yet to be replicated in other lucrative sectors of the profession such as commercial property and real estate development market (McCormick, 2014).

In Africa and Nigeria by extension women are inequitably represented in the real estate profession (Obih, 2014).

The reasons for the under-representation is traceable to ill cultural practices that discriminate against women.   ―Girls education end in kitchen‖ was a common cliché I heard back in my primary and secondary school days in Port Harcourt, Nigeria over two decades ago.

This notion is founded on the culturally assigned or defined roles for Nigeria women.

According to Degan (1993), the view of culture is that women should stay at home and learn to tend family instead of attending school.

Valerie (2006) in Ling, Sulaiman and Arif (2013) also is of the view that women are confronted by structural and cultural barriers that often exclude them fromprofessional and career ladder.

Cultural beliefs of what women should be have negatively influenced women development in various stages of their lives.

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References