The current shortage of labor in the industry presents an opportunity to hire even more women in construction jobs. As advancements in construction technology have grown, many companies are hesitant in trying them out for a variety of reasons, including a lack of staff. Hiring and training women in the IT departments of construction companies can help with the staff shortage and improve companies’ diversity.

Although there are obstacles for women entering construction, diversity is a proven asset in driving profitability and a key component in solving the construction industry’s labor shortage. With more and more groundbreaking women chipping away at gender norms and leveling the playing field, the industry is taking bigger steps at becoming a more diverse and inclusive space for future generations.

In fact, that report found that construction companies with more women in executive line roles than staff roles experienced above-average financial performance compared to companies that didn’t. When 30% or more of executive-level positions were filled by women, those companies had a 48% likelihood of outperforming their least diverse competitors.

Although more diversity brings about more success, Randstad found that women executives are more likely to occupy staff roles (14%) than line roles (7%). This is in stark contrast to men in executive roles, with 33% operating as staff executives and 46% as line executives.

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Construction industry in Nigeria has achieved a great feat not only in the provision of labour and GDP but as well as the ripple effect that emanates from setting up a construction site a particular location, such as market to building/construction materials vendors, work to both skilled/unskilled/casual labourers, and market to local food sellers, to name but a few. For the past few decades, the industry continuously has witnessed tremendous change in design and construction of buildings and other civil works. As ICT accentuates the progress in the industry becomes more noticeable. The building and construction sector in Nigeria registered strong growth, standing at 12.09% in 2010, compared to 11.97% in 2009, reflecting greater investments in both residential and non-residential buildings and other construction activities. Growth in construction related activities rose by 12.24% in 2010 as against 11.97% in 2009 [1]. Construction contribution to the GDP ranges between 3% and 6% from independence to the 80’s before crumbling to about 1% over the last decades [1]. Furthermore, [1] found that the construction sector contribution to the GDP ranged between 3% and 6% since Nigeria gained independence until the 1980s, before decreasing to about 1% since then. While [3] observed an upward progression in the contribution of the construction industry to GDP, which was about 3% in 2012 due to an improved budgetary implementation and private sector participation. According to [4], the sector accounted for 3.44% of real GDP in the fourth quarter 2019, lower than its contribution of 3.48% in the same quarter of the previous year, but higher than the preceding quarter’s 3.01%. In 2019, Construction contributed 3.72% to real GDP. Construction sector grew by 1.31% in Q4 2019 from 2.37% in Q3 2019 and 2.05% in Q4 2018. Construction sector grew by 1.81% in full year 2019 from 2.33% in 2018 and 1% in 2017 

Nigeria being a developing country is confronted with a lot of problems and her construction industry is still struggling with a lot of intrinsic challenges, ranging from inadequate technical and managerial know-how to insufficient financial, material and equipment capital base [6]. According to [1] [7] the peculiar problems common to construction industries in sub–Saharan Africa (SSA) countries, are project financing, dearth of technical expertise, corrupt government and poor implementation of policies and programmes; these are challenges mitigating the development and growth of the sector and hence the contribution to the sustainable development. Other problems of local companies revolve around executive capacity and critical mass with technical and financial wherewithal. Generally, most local companies are small, fragmented and incapable of packaging or attracting loans. Few of them can deliver turnkey projects without resorting to some form of partnership agreement for equipment, expertise or technical support

Balouga [7] observed that there exists the so-called “Knowing-Doing gap” in Nigeria, that is the disconnect that exists between policy formulation and policy implementation. This term describes the absence of a critical link between strategy and action. Public policy initiatives and actions in Nigeria have persistently been incapacitated by this gap, with many government programmes and projects ending in downright failure. Inadequate think through, weak institutional capacity, lack of political will to carry through change, inconsistency in government policies, lack of support from relevant stakeholders and corruption are some of the causes of this gap. credit to scirb

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