Why do women gradually drop out of the architecture profession? Here is one story of staying in the field that offers some clues.

When I graduated from college with an architecture degree, about half of us were women. I am now in my 14th year of architecture career, licensed and really loving what I do. However, the reality is that there are only 17% of other licensed architects who are women like me.

This is not a new topic. There are many other male-dominated professions, and we all wonder: what happens to the women who had the aspirations to make a rewarding career?

I think that a partial answer is in the amount of working hours women are able to put into their job when they become parents. Let's dive in!

When I started working right out of college, I could put in 10 hours a day easily, because I would skip lunch and stay an extra hour. (If you are a woman in architecture and your hours contradict mine, please share them in the comment for comparison.)

When my husband and I had a child, my work hours were cut by the daycare schedule. On the days that I would drop off my son and pick him up, I would only be able to get 7 hours in and have to find time later at night to answer emails and fill up the timecard to the full 8-hour day. I thought that this was going to be the reality for me for the next 10 years or so, and figured out how to manage to get work done efficiently within that time by prioritizing and delegating. Little did I know what waited for me next... what waited for all of us parents of small children.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and our whole family had to shelter in place, I could only squeeze in 5 hours of work a day - half in the mornings and half in the evenings. As my business partner says, "I was a school teacher moonlighting as an architect." Self-employed by then, I learned to limit the number of projects I took on and manage the workload that I had gracefully.

But what happens to the women who are not self-employed and have the obligation to put in 8-10 hours a day? Not all offices provide the needed flexibility! Do these women have partners that take over the caretaker role? Do they hire a full-time nanny? Or do they have to say goodbye to the profession for a while, until they once again have time in the day to dedicate to it?

I encourage offices with traditional time commitment models to be a little more open minded, because there is no one who is more organized and capable of managing work in a short amount of time than a busy mom. And, I also encourage other ambitious and driven women to go on a journey of self-employment!