Historically, legislation has prohibited women from being employed in mining activities in the formal mining industry (Damaske, 2011; Worldwide Recruitment Solutions, 2014). The United Kingdom (UK) promulgated legislation between 1842 and 1933 to exclude women from the workforce in mines, following the report of the Royal Commission in August 1840 on working conditions and treatment of women and children in mines (Government of the United Kingdom Parliament, 1842). Germany, North America, Sweden, Russia and Japan followed suit (Alexander, 2007; Mudimba, 2018). In 1935, the International Labour Organization (ILO) agreement stated in article 2 that ‘no woman, regardless of her age, shall work underground in a mine’ (Drägerwerk, n.d.). Only in 2008 did the European Court of Justice rule that this contravened the principle of equal opportunities for men and women regarding access to employment (Drägerwerk, n.d.) although women in the United States of America (US) have been employed in mining activities since the early 1970s (Cavender, 1988).

In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the employment of women in the mining industry should be contextualised against its colonial history and resultant cultural marginalisation, racial and gender discrimination and lack of legal and economic rights (Arthur-Holmes & Abrefa Busia, 2021; Musonda, 2020). Moreover, the deep infiltration of Chinese mining entrepreneurs and their reservation of job opportunities for expats led to the lesser employment of citizens, including women, in the countries where the mines are situated (Wegenast, Krauser, Strüver, & Giesen, 2019). Even though several policy frameworks and commissions have emerged in the past decade to level the field for women employment, their participation remains lagging (Krauser, Wegenast, Schneider, & Elgersma, 2019; Orleans-Boham, Sakyi-Addo, Tahiru, & Amankwah, 2020).

Previously, South African legislation also prevented women’s entry into sectors such as the mining industry. The South African Minerals Act (Act 50 of 1991) legally enforced the exclusion of women from working underground in mines (AngloGold Ashanti, 2007; Benya, 2009; De Klerk, 2012; Mokotong, 2016). Only after the adoption of the Mines Health and Safety Act of 1996 did women legally gain the right to work underground in the mining sector (Ralushai, 2003). Protection and freedom were further afforded to women with the provision of Section 6 of the Employment Equity Act of 1998; in addition to prohibiting sex/gender discrimination, it permits women to be accorded preferential treatment, but mining activities in the global mining industry were for long exclusively male dominated (Drägerwerk, n.d.; Worldwide Recruitment Solutions, 2014).

Limited research has been done on women employment in the South African mining industry. Previous studies of the industry have mainly focused on the management of men and women (Botha & Cronje, 2015b), women’s experiences concerning race and gender (Botha, 2013a; Pretorius, 2016) and on topics such as career progress, opencast mining (Moalusi & Jones, 2019) and partly opencast mining (Botha & Cronje, 2015b), health and safety (Botha & Cronje, 2015a) or sexual harassment (Botha, 2016a). The literature indicates that women are particularly appreciated for their cautiousness, for example, when operating machinery, their compliance as subordinates, their low absenteeismand for their positive impact on their male counterparts (Lahiri-Dutt & Macintyre, 2006), but there is hardly any evidence focusing primarily on women’s adaptive strategies in an underground mining setting.

Mining environments operate in different ways, hence the need to contextualise the specific work environment. Mines extract deposits of gold, diamonds, platinum, coal and other metals and minerals by surface/opencast and underground mining (Oreflow, 2019). Surface mining is practised where surface rock and soil overlay a mineral deposit. In underground mining, the ore is extracted from below the earth’s surface (Oreflow, 2019) by sub-surface mining, drift-mining, slope mining or shaft mining (Geology Page, 2019). Mines are categorised as high-risk work environments, and mining jobs are classified as hazardous occupations (Botha & Cronje, 2015a). Mineworkers access underground work areas through a shaft, to a depth of up to 4 km (Clark, Hustrulid, & Mero, 2017; Mining Technology, 2019). Underground central lighting is limited in these working spaces and mainly illuminates the underground railway tracks that transport the mined goods. All mineworkers are therefore issued with headlamps.

In this article, we focus specifically on women in the mining industry. In the subsequent sections, a literature overview is presented as well as the theoretical framework guiding the research.

A contextualised view of women’s adaptive strategies draws on the Ecological Psychological Behavioural Settings theory of Barker (1968), and two guiding heuristic constructs, namely structuration and agency (see Kholeif & Jack, 2019; Yuthas, Dillard, & Rogers, 2004). The settings theory proposes that behaviour – in this instance, women’s adaptive strategies – is inextricably linked to the setting (underground mining environment), following the thinking of Burke et al. (2009). From a structuration conceptual viewpoint, there is an interrelationship between structures and agency, with a structure characterised as rules (normative or interpretive), and resources distinguished as being allocative (material or economic) or authoritative (within social systems and relationships). Rules represent the expected patterns in the behavioural milieu interface, what behaviour is appropriate or acceptable or not; while resources provide the means or facilities to achieve goals (Yuthas et al., 2004). Agency in this instance refers to the women as ‘active agents who constantly shape and are shaped by their environments’ (Lounsbury & Mitchell, 2009, p. 215). In the reciprocal interaction between structure and people, the women employed adaptive strategies as reflexive, knowledgeable people (active agents), who exercise their ability to act (see Filion, 2021; Yuthas et al., 2004). The adaptive strategies (agency) form as part of self-regulation processes and manifest in relation to the conditions governing the social system (structuration) (Barker, 2016). Adaptive strategies are therefore formed by dynamic, mutually influential processes between people and the micro and macro environment (interpersonal, group, organisation, broader sociocultural, political and historical) (Mazzetti & Blenkinsopp, 2012; Neal & Christens, 2014). The interplay between people and social structures is guided by sociocultural norms (Van der Westhuizen, 2017). Very little is known about the adaptive behaviour women have developed in underground mining environments.

In this study, adaptive strategies are regarded as those behaviours that enable women to mitigate challenges, achieve goals and ‘survive well’ (see Botha, 2013b; Willers et al., 2013). The term ‘challenges’ is preferred to ‘problem’ or ‘threat’ because it implies an optimistic view that difficulties or challenges can be overcome (Mazzetti & Blenkinsopp, 2012). The adaptive strategies of the women studied were explored by adopting a contextualised epistemology.

Qualitative research is an appropriate research method for understanding social complexities involving individual women in the physical and social contexts of underground mines (Braun & Clarke, 2013). Trickett (1996, p. 216) suggested that qualitative research was appropriate to understand ‘how different levels of the ecological environment impinge on the way individuals and communities develop a rhythm, order their priorities, and create resources to cope with stressful life events’. A qualitative descriptive design was used to obtain information directly from the women in their work contexts (Sandelowski, 2000, 2009).

To contextualise the adaptive strategies women employed in an underground mining environment, the challenges they identified as well as the themes and sub-themes are presented in Table 1.

The findings of this research, conducted with participants in an underground mine, demonstrated that the women’s individual agency is limited by social structure, socio-historical-political contexts, time and place and culture. These women faced challenges on three levels, namely intrapersonal (fear and internalised gendered roles and responsibilities), relational (undermining practices, sexual harassment and abuse) and on a systemic level (ineffective organisational procedures and policies and traditional gendered stereotypes). The discussion focused on how social structure and social action (adaptive strategies) can be seen as interdependent, having at once resources and constraints, and how the participants despite the constraints, have taken up agency and engaged in adaptive strategies, which manifested on four levels of support: intrapersonal, behavioural, relational and systemic.

On an intrapersonal level, women navigated in a deprived physical and perceived hostile or potentially boundary-violating interpersonal context by a self-driven process to adopt a different perspective and question traditional beliefs. Adopting a different perspective, according to Vorster, Roos and Beukes (2013), enabled the women to consider both positive and negative elements associated with the challenges they are faced with in the particular setting. Women who employed this adaptive strategy demonstrated that they are ‘self-interpretive and creative agents’ following Filion (2021, p. 259). The women who are able to conduct a holistic appraisal of challenges create more possibilities for reacting to and dealing with their challenges. The second strategy women employed was to question the relevance of sociocultural norms or what Butler (in Van der Westhuizen, 2017, p. 14) referred to as ‘implicit standard of normalisation’ that guided the interpersonal space between them and men in the underground mining environment. Literature confirms that awareness guides self-regulation towards achieving goals more effectively (Botha, 2013b), and that social structures can at once enable and constrain actions (see Yuthas et al., 2004).

We observed the women using behavioural strategies: self-defence, solution-focused actions, and hard work. These strategies may be described as the manifestation of ‘intentional agency’ (Kholeif & Jack, 2019, p. 63) or ‘intentional human activity’ (Yuthas et al., 2004, p. 231). Self-defence served to protect boundaries, and this could, according to Van der Kolk (2014), support the women in preserving their physical integrity and ultimately their well-being and mental health. The solution-focused behaviour included selecting the behaviour they needed to upskill or become more informed as a means of compensating for their lack of physical strength to perform challenging tasks. The women also employed a strategy of consistently working hard in pursuit of self-interest, given that institutions are likely to reward hard work that results in goal achievement. Moreover, the women who consistently worked hard, reportedly changed the views of the men in their teams and informed the (respectful) treatment of the women. Intentional agency and intentional human activity are associated with the origins of social structural changes (Kholeif & Jack, 2019).

The women employed three adaptive relational strategies: supportive same-gendered groups, support from working teams, and safe interpersonal spaces for debriefing. For support, women turned to a group with similar characteristics: other women who shared their fear of boundary violation or vulnerability and offered unconditional protection. The finding confirmed literature’s claim that people tend to draw support from groups with similar characteristics (Bahns, Pickett, & Crandall, 2012). The women also received support from their work teams. In the mines, they consist of men and women, and when teams collectively aim to achieve a shared goal, they are less affected by intergroup anxiety and more likely to display supportive behaviour, trust, perspective taking and social empathy. According to Harrell (2018), these are qualities known to promote social responsibility, collaboration and goal achievement. From a contextual view, Barker (2016) confirmed that settings in which a variety of skills, perspectives or temperaments are available contribute to more resilient settings. Finally, supervisors who facilitated a safe interpersonal context supported the women in debriefing about their frustrations and obtain much-needed support.

The women mobilised broader systemic support from the organisation, family and external stakeholders. An approachable HR department in this particular work environment as an authoritative resource provided the means and facilities for women to realise their objectives (see Yuthas et al., 2004). Literature confirms the importance of well-functioning and supportive HR management (Johnson & Gueutal, 2011; Parry & Battista, 2019). The women found support from close relationships (e.g. family members or partners), which provided opportunities to debrief, and if the women’s distress was correctly mirrored and validated, it shifted their attention to increasing the possibilities for perspective-taking (see Hendix, Hunt, Luquet, & Carlson, 2015). Not all women had access to such supportive relations, and this lack could potentially aggravate their emotional vulnerability and sense of isolation, thus highlighting the importance of a supportive workplace and external resources. Finally, the women used their resource-finding capacity to breach the boundaries of the mining institution to obtain external resourcing, drawing on the support from inter-institutional relations (see Filion, 2021).

At the organisational level, the HRs department could play a facilitatory role to ensure that all employee relations, procedures and policies are in place and properly applied. Simultaneously, organisational structures and processes should support employee well-being, health and safety.

Creating optimal physical and psychological conditions (systemic) will be the biggest challenge for the mining industry. The nature of the business and the environment makes it a dangerous place to work in, and this could take time to improve or redesign. Women’s entry in the mining industry is promoted by advancements in technology that require less physical strength, but instead fine motor and problem-solving skills to perform underground mining activities (Buthelezi, 2013; Lahiri-Dutt & Macintyre, 2006; Mine Health and Safety Council, 2015; Minerals Council South Africa, 2018; Oxford, 2015; Solomons, 2015).

The equalising of conditions to promote the employment of women in mining should be a standing point on the national mining agenda of SSA countries. The findings of this study, which served to highlight women’s adaptive strategies in an underground mining environment, informed the following recommendations:

This research is a first attempt to shed light on the adaptive strategies a group of women employed in an underground mine in South Africa. The inclusion of women from one mine yielded rich contextual data, but the extent to which the knowledge is transferrable to other underground mining contexts should be treated with caution. Nevertheless, the findings are a start and inform the need for further research in SSA underground mines, focusing on aspects such as identifying women’s adaptive strategies in gendered teams, or investigating the procedural and behavioural strategies that HR departments might consider to inform systemic interventions beneficial to the employment of more women in favourable underground mining environments.

Literature offers little on the subject of women’s navigation of frequently harsh physical and perceived threatening interpersonal contexts in underground mining contexts. In a first attempt to fill this knowledge gap, we discovered that the women mine workers in the group studied resourcefully employed strategies on an intrapersonal, behavioural, relational level, as well as drawing on broader systemic support. We concluded that identifying and strengthening women’s adaptive strategies could benefit women in underground mining environments and gendered teams’ goal achievements, the overall performance of mines and eventually the wider African society.