Women professionals’ participation in the nigerian construction industry: finding voice for the voiceless

The construction industry is a male-dominated industry globally, with poor women representation in every facet of the construction profession and the involved jobs. In this context, this study investigated the current level of women participation, challenges faced by professional women, factors that influence them in the course of developing careers in construction and the criteria that can be used to encourage women participation in the Nigerian construction industry. This was done through self-administration of 145 structured questionnaires to 93 women professionals in the built environment and 52 employers of built environment labour in Abuja, Nigeria. The analyses showed that the construction industry is largely dominated by men, with women having a lot of challenges ranging from lack of self-confidence to compete with their male counterparts to insecurity in the midst of men to execute their work as professionals. Therefore, the study recommends that making young women aware of construction industry opportunities is needed to encourage them to build their careers in construction from the school stage in order to increase the number of professional women participating in the future. In addition to this, professional women should be given equal job opportunities as their male counterparts to ensure better representation of women so that the impact of women professionals in the construction industry can be extended.