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Despite efforts to promote gender diversity, the construction industry in Australia remains one of the most male-dominated industries. Women, compared to their male counterparts, progress more slowly and encounter major obstacles to career development in the construction industry. Existing research tends to focus on broad factors that impact women's career development in all career stages despite the fact that women's career priorities often change as they progress through different career stages. This study applied Super's career development model to investigate the influential factors on women's career development across four career stages: explore (precareer), establishment (early career), midcareer, and late career. By conducting a systematic review in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, this research identified influential factors related to women's career development in the construction industry, namely, attitude, capability, interest, past experiences, family responsibilities, parental influences, role models, support, culture, organizational practice, and policies and regulations. Based on the women's empowerment framework, the identified factors were coded and synthesized into three dimensions: individual, relational, and environmental. The research finds there is a significant focus on providing relational and environmental support to women in construction, and less attention is given to individual factors. The review revealed that personal interest and parental perceptions in construction influence women's career development in precareer and early career stages, while masculine culture significantly impacts women's career development in all career stages. This study also summarizes the theoretical contributions and practical implications drawn from existing research on different stages of women's career development and provides guidance for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The circular economy plays a key role in the wider transition to a low-carbon built environment. Materials are critical in this transition, yet there is limited information about their current use in the built environment in many regions. This explorative study investigated circular economy in the Australian construction materials industry using a three-stage mixed-method approach. The first stage was to map actors and their practices and challenges related to material supply, use, and end of life. This involved 20 interviews with stakeholders and a workshop. The second stage was to assess key materials stocks and flows to identify the volume of the challenge through existing databases and consultation with industry stakeholders. The third stage was to understand the current state of material circularity at industry-leading examples. This was investigated through 13 interviews across two case studies, alongside site visits. These complementary research methods and stages provided findings into material circularity potential within the residential construction sector from both a macroperspective and a microperspective. The results included that new materials being used in construction are more than double the flow of waste out, showing that stocks of materials in use are growing rapidly but that data gaps are extensive. There was a focus on material reduction for cost-savings and sustainability, but there was significant opportunity for other circular economy principles, such as rethinking construction techniques. Further, in the context of a highly volatile industry, circularity requires a focus on material-specific institutional arrangements. The contribution to knowledge on construction materials and their supply chain provides fundamental insights that are required for the transition toward a circular economy, where the residential construction sector (not just in Australia but globally) would more readily reduce, reuse, recycle and recover resources, as well as being less reliant on virgin material use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]