Is Plumbing a Good Career for Women?

In the past, women didn't have enough chances to approach different careers and fields. However, women have started to prove themselves in many male-dominated industries, facing and breaking many societal expectations and negative beliefs regarding women's abilities. You can find endless examples of women who managed to make a name for themselves in different trades, including the plumbing industry. This has resulted in an increasing number of women being recognized in the plumbing and HVACR fields. But the question remains, is plumbing a good career choice for women?

Advantages of The Plumbing Profession

The first thing that people look into when they are contemplating any career choice is its stability, especially when it comes to where you're working. Because plumbing remains a male-dominated career, it may be profitable for women in more liberal states and cities, such as California, even in small coastal cities like Laguna Beach.  The plumbing professionals at https://allserviceplumbers.com/laguna-beach/ explain that plumbing strikes a balance between stability and flexibility. It's ensured that everyone will always need a plumber at one point. At the same time, it's flexible. You can choose to work independently with flexibility in location and time. Owning your own plumbing business means that you get to choose who to work with, when to work, and where to work. Other than these benefits, an established plumbing career offers many other advantages:

Less Student Loan Debt
College students finish college with huge college debts. These loans always cause more stress and inhumane working hours just to be able to pay them off. Going for a trade such as plumbing will only require going to a community college or a vocational school for less money. After that, you can attend an apprenticeship and get paid while you are learning.

Job Variety
This matters to a lot of people; being able to work in different industries with different job requirements is a lot better than doing the same thing over and over again. While some plumbers might choose to do house calls, other plumbers can still design a plumbing system for new buildings or even develop new plumbing techniques.

Job Satisfaction
Many people want to find their purpose in life; to be able to do something that is meaningful and essential that will give them such satisfaction. Plumbers save lives every day by providing clean water and averting many potential risks.

Personal Benefits
Plumbing, unlike other career choices, doesn't require doing the same thing every day for 9 hours without engaging your body and mind. With time, you will find that you have developed a set of skills that will benefit you in your day-to-day life. Constantly having to analyze different problems that are thrown your way and coming up with creative solutions while handling daily business transactions will ensure a healthy body and mind.

Women in Plumbing

Hattie Hasan, founder of a business consisting of women plumbers has dedicated a full book on the subject where she explores the life of a woman as a plumber and the perks of this career choice. Hattie was only a school teacher; however, she was interested in handy DIY projects. She then managed to start her own plumbing business. Hattie also wanted to focus on helping other women in the plumbing field and that's why she started a newsletter to bring women plumbers together. Another example of a successful woman plumber is Lorraine Dotchin who was an IT manager who succeeded in building her own plumbing business in just two years. She found what interested her and followed her dreams regardless of the negligible number of women plumbers around her.

Required Skills and Knowledge

Plumbers need to acquire a set of skills that allows them to install and maintain a functional piping system. They are responsible for the pipelines that deliver clean, drinkable water to every house. They also have to ensure that the piping system they install is efficiently containing sewage and drainage. So, it's not a surprise that they need schooling that provides the proper knowledge on how to install and design these systems. They also need to get enough practice and different training sessions to be able to assess the different problems that they will come across. Plumbing requires a level of problem-solving abilities that are also taught to engineers of different working fields.

Many women are often reluctant to approach this male-dominated field. Getting into the trades needs a level of willingness to push back and to overcome the never-ending challenges and obstacles that come along with this decision. The answer to whether plumbers hire women or not varies from an employer to another and from one location to the other. Even though women might have faced doubts and rejection in the past, these conditions are drastically changing in our modern days.