International Journal of

ADVANCED AND APPLIED SCIENCES

EISSN: 2313-3724, Print ISSN: 2313-626X

Frequency: 12

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 Volume 13, Issue 4 (April 2026), Pages: 96-107

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 Original Research Paper

A quantitative study of the career aspirations of female university students in a transforming labor market in Saudi Arabia

 Author(s): 

Bayan N. Alqurashi *, Komal Khalid

 Affiliation(s):

Department of Human Resource Management, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

 Full text

    Full Text - PDF

 * Corresponding Author. 

   Corresponding author's ORCID profile:  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8638-2449

 Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  https://doi.org/10.21833/ijaas.2026.04.010

 Abstract

Career aspirations, including leadership, education, and achievement, are both a process and an outcome shaped by interactions among factors at multiple levels. However, limited research has examined how individual, cultural, and institutional factors influence female career aspirations, particularly in the context of labor market change. This study investigates the effects of institutional factors (perceived government labor market support), individual factors (career decision-making self-efficacy), and cultural dimensions (long-term orientation) on the career aspirations of female university students in Saudi Arabia, a country experiencing rapid labor market transformation. Survey data were collected from 552 female university students and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modelling. The results show that perceived government support is a strong predictor of career aspirations, both directly and indirectly. Higher levels of career decision-making self-efficacy are also associated with stronger aspirations across all domains, while long-term orientation has a weaker effect. This study contributes to cross-cultural research on female career development in the Middle East by highlighting the combined influence of multi-level factors. It also improves understanding of the career aspirations of female university students, an important group for achieving national economic and labor market goals. The findings offer practical implications for higher education institutions, policy-makers, and researchers.

 © 2026 The Authors. Published by IASE.

 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

 Keywords

Female career aspirations, Government support, Self-efficacy, Long-term orientation, Saudi Arabia

 Article history

Received 4 December 2025, Received in revised form 30 March 2026, Accepted 5 April 2026

 Acknowledgment

No Acknowledgment. 

 Compliance with ethical standards

 Ethical considerations:

This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (Ref. No. 10-25). All participants provided informed consent prior to participation. Participation was voluntary, and confidentiality and anonymity of responses were assured. 

 Conflict of interest: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

 Citation:

Alqurashi BN and Khalid K (2026). A quantitative study of the career aspirations of female university students in a transforming labor market in Saudi Arabia. International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences, 13(4): 96-107

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