Women in Real Estate : A Swedish study of barriers and oppurtunities

Abstract: The following thesis is a qualitative study of career barriers and opportunities for women in commercial real estate in Sweden. Additionally the purpose is to make suggestions for positive change opportunities for the industry as a whole. The Swedish real estate industry is currently experiencing a rather substantial generational change in addition to a shortage of interest from the younger generations. It is male dominated and still largely considered to be conservative in its values and practices. There is a need for re-branding and enhanced marketing of the industry as interesting and open to change as well as a large untapped potential in the talent pool of women in the working population. The study has been performed through a literature review of current research and an interview study. Eighteen women were interviewed about their individual experiences and their views about the industry. The interview guide is partly designed to mirror the inequality regimes set forth by Joan Acker (2006). The results show that there are many underlying processes and structures found in theory that can be indentified in the Swedish real estate industry today, even though much work currently is done in many organizations to change the skewed distribution of men and women, particularly in management positions. Without doubt, there is enormous potential for change in the industry and using the information in this thesis could prove very useful.