ENHANCING WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRYTHROUGH CONSTRUCTION 4.0 TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION IN NIGERIA

The Construction industry is labour intensive, male-dominated and the nature of work is predominantly manual. The manual jobs carried out in the construction industry are both skilled-based and unskilled-based, which require physical presence most times, the use of strength, and are too tedious for most women to fit in. Hence, the adoption of technologies like those of construction 4.0 can further encourage more women’s participation in the construction industry. This study aims at promoting gender equality and encouraging more participation of women in the construction industry through the use of construction 4.0. The methodology includes survey design and purposive sampling techniques. Data were analyzed using mean and rank order. The findings revealed that Construction 4.0 technologies include Building Information Modeling (BIM), drones, etc. Among the Construction 4.0 technologies that can enhance women’s participation in the construction industry are; drones/ robots for technical assistance, the Internet ofthings/semantics for interconnection and interoperability, and BIM for decentralized decision, etc.The adoption of these technologies can be encouraged by making them readily available at a subsidized rate, upskilling/ reskilling workers, and continuous sensitization of professionals. The study recommends that Government should provide the enabling environment/policies to encourage investment in these technologies.