Appraising the barriers facing females in embracing building skilled trades in nigeria: Threat to achieve sustainable development goal 5

The 2030 Agenda is all about inclusiveness and gender balance. The building industry is key to achieving many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including Goal 5 (gender equality), but the sector is male-dominated. Research about closing the gender gap in building skilled trades, especially in young-adult developing countries’ informal sector, is scarce. Thus, this research investigates barriers and suggests ways to help young adult females embrace building skilled trades as careers in the informal private sector and, by extension, improve their achievement of Goal 5. The study adopted a qualitative research design. The study data were collated through semi-structured interview questions. The study covered selected cities across Nigeria and achieved saturation at the 35th Interviewee. The researchers adopted a thematic technique to analyse the collated data. The findings identified cultural and religious issues, early marriage, lower pay, men-dominated sector, unregulated sector, bullying, and lack of mentors/role models as the perceived major barriers facing Nigerian construction young-adult females’ building skilled trades gender equality. Achieving Goal 5 may become an illusion if these barriers are not mitigated. As part of the study’s originality, the research recommends a multi-dimensional, all-inclusive mechanism to bridge the gender inequality gap in Nigeria’s skilled construction trades, especially in the informal private sector.