Documenting the profession: Recording historic access and retention issues for women in UK archaeology


Pope, Rachel ORCID: 0000-0001-6178-3481 and Teather, Anne ORCID: 0000-0003-4207-2486 (2024) Documenting the profession: Recording historic access and retention issues for women in UK archaeology. Archaeological Dialogues, 31 (1). pp. 76-100. ISSN 1380-2038, 1478-2294

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Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p> This article documents the survival of gender inequalities in UK archaeology. We discover how an early equality and diversity agenda (Morris 1992) was dismantled in the late 1990s and explore the impact this had on women’s careers. Analysis of data from Chartered Institute for Archaeologists <jats:sup>1</jats:sup> employment surveys for the period 1999–2008 enables a developed understanding of why many women, often reluctantly, left archaeology in their 30s, in a continual ‘leaky pipeline’, as volunteer group British Women Archaeologists was established. We find core issues linked to this ‘sector exodus’ as a gendering of tasks/under-employment, lack of support around parenting, and gendered promotion, leading to pay disparity. We argue that a refusal in the late 1990s to modernize employment structures around women workers’ needs underpins ongoing economic precarity in the sector. </jats:p>

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: 4301 Archaeology, 4303 Historical Studies, 43 History, Heritage and Archaeology, 10 Reduced Inequalities, 5 Gender Equality
Divisions: Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences
Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences > School of Histories, Languages and Cultures
Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences > School of Histories, Languages and Cultures > Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology
Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences > Faculty of Humanities & Social Sci (All T&R Staff)
Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences > School of Histories, Languages and Cultures > School of Histories, Languages and Cultures (T&R Staff)
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 15 Oct 2025 11:24
Last Modified: 31 Oct 2025 12:21
DOI: 10.1017/s1380203825100056
Open Access URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203825100056
Related Websites:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3194848
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