This study engaged labelling theory in explaining the barriers to female construction graduates’ entry into academic careers. The labelling theory propounded by Becker [24,25] is rooted in a sociological perspective that explains contextual knowledge based on self-identity or behaviour using determinants of social status or characteristics for labelling. Ref. [26] admitted that labelling theory is a popular sociological perspective that interrogates dominant norms and values and questions the taken-for-granted understanding of normalcy and deviancy. Kumar [26] added that labelling is a complex procedure rooted in cultural, social, political, and psychological ideologies, which has far-reaching impacts on the identity of individuals or gender profiling threats. Ref. [27] reported that gender stereotypes or gender profiling are threatening and harmful when they limit women’s or men’s capability to excel in a particular field, make a career choice, or develop their abilities. Kumar [26] describes labelling as the perspective that focuses on the interaction between individuals in society, which is the basis for meanings within that society. It indicates that the dominant and influential individuals, social groups, and the state create a widespread perception of crime by labelling some behaviours unacceptable. The labelling process lays bare the social–cultural fundamentals of students’ and faculties’ lives, impacting their life chances, access to capital, and social status within organisational contexts [26]. The labelling theory has been previously explored in race or crime literature to explain social classification, making certain individuals or genders vulnerably labelled and victims of stigmatisation [24,25].

The sociological perspective of labelling theory in this study explains gender equality in the academic careers of female construction graduates in HEIs. Various thoughts labelled gender equality in academic careers as equity are equated with equality through equivalent access to recruitment opportunities, equal payment structures, career development opportunities, and freedom from harassment [23]. Nevertheless, labelling equality is still different from equating equity with equality, assuming the workplace is completely separated from the rest of life. Furthermore, refs. [23,28] argued that labelling gender equality should go beyond balancing opportunities but should be based on practices that promote fairness and take into consideration an academic’s life outside the academy. Labelling gender equality in academic careers considers practices like parental leave but neglects the career consequences for women who take advantage of the leave [23]. Hence, ref. [23] admitted that being gender-neutral or the different life experiences of men and women are often ignored in gender equality definitions and makes the current ‘male’ model the ideal academic normative.

Nonetheless, Becker [24,28] used the experiences of female academics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2003 to produce the perspective that labelling gender equality that gives full expression should be based on integrating the private sphere of life (community, family, and other personal involvements) and the public sphere of work inclusive. Gender equality in HEIs will require integrating the public and the private sphere of life into organisational culture, policies, and practices and must be modified accordingly and understood by everyone [23]. However, Bailyn [29] maintained that the proportion of female academia generally increases slowly, and women are likelier to be found in junior positions (lecturer), less than their male counterparts, and less likely to be tenured. Researchers have reflected that inherent biases, such as assessing professional competence, disadvantage women while giving men credit for high levels of competence [30,31]. These assumptions labelled women as less competent, which is often found in male-dominated careers, particularly construction and engineering [32,33]. Kumar [26,34] affirmed that the impact of labelling in education on gender or specific individuals could facilitate the passage of supportive policies to provide structures for organisations and organising government programmes. Labelling has often served the purpose of inclusiveness in students’ matriculation or enrolment, graduation, and career choice, linking opportunity to providing additional support to females in male-dominated professions [27]. Such labels tend to profile women’s identity and reduce the degree to which female construction graduates socialise, mix, and enter academic careers in HEIs.

Effort towards improving gender inclusiveness of women and girls in male-dominated careers is supported by the Sustainable Development Goal 5. Gender equality towards women and girls explicitly drives sustainable development [35]. Nonetheless, as informed by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, 2012) [35], Goal 5, gender equality, advocated for women’s and girls’ empowerment against any form of discrimination. The core relevance of Goal 5 is to eliminate violence and harmful practices and ensure equal participation and opportunities for leadership. According to ref. [36], the strategies for achieving SDG 5, gender equality, are by measuring the extent to which countries have legal frameworks in place for gender equality in four areas: overarching legal frameworks and public life, violence against women, employment and economic benefits, and marriage and family. Therefore, this study is underpinned by the labelling theory and its application in examining the barriers to attracting and retaining female construction graduates into academic careers using perceptions of Master of Science students in southwestern Nigerian HEIs as a case study.

According to Ceci [21], various views were held regarding understanding women’s underrepresentation in academic careers. This includes understanding the perspective of the independent attributes that contribute to women’s underrepresentation, which comprises the demand for students’ enrolment and graduation rates, rates of obtaining tenure-track positions, hiring outcomes, job satisfaction, transition rates, interviewing outcomes, hiring outcomes, promotion rates, salary, work-product evaluation, job persistence, grant-getting success, and number of publications [21]. Ceci [21] argued that understanding the conceptualisation of women’s excellence and productivity, the linkage of women from high school to college to graduate school, and making career choices are also essential. Imasogie [37] admitted that understanding and closing the gap in women’s enrolment in construction and engineering professions will improve gender balance. Hence, stakeholders must appraise existing strategies towards delimiting policies, primordial cultures, curricula, and changed career paths to improve women’s enrolment and participation in construction and engineering professions [37]. The low record of women’s enrolment over time has significantly led to a higher concentration of male professional engineers than women [37,38,39]. Maintaining gender balance in academic careers requires addressing women’s enrolment in construction programmes (architecture, building, quantity surveying) in the HEIs to close the gap of female graduates entering academic careers [38]. Nonetheless, Blair-Loy [40] admitted that the prevalent barriers to women in construction in HEIs over two decades include policymakers and researchers focusing on recruitment, retention, and social equity challenges.

Further, Lindberg [41,42] explored the vertical and horizontal analysis of gender balance in recruiting and retaining academia in HEIs. The vertical analysis explains the gender balance of women to men in senior positions (senior lecturer and professorships) in HEIs using the correlation between sex and hierarchical position [41,42]. Refs. [42,43] posited that women are better represented at the lower levels of the academic hierarchy than men at the senior levels. Lindberg [41,42] noted that focusing on the vertical aspect of gender equality contributes to why women’s underrepresentation in several disciplines is not addressed and does not consider that the solutions to underrepresentation must vary across disciplines. However, the demands of HEIs make it challenging to tie women’s underrepresentation to gender inequality in academics to a specific time when it was introduced [42]. Rather, it involves several processes interacting at different periods [42,43]. Hence, Silander [42] argued that a horizontal gender analysis is needed to complement the commonly used vertical analysis to improve gender equality in academia within HEIs. This is because the horizontal analysis of gender balance explains the correlation between sex and the demands of the academic field in which a person works [42].

According to Marra [20,37,44], significant factors affect women’s representation in maintaining gender balance in male-dominated professions. They include cultural setup, sociocultural factors, career path opportunity, psychosocial influence, gender policies, awareness, and negative perception of academic careers for women [6,20,37,44]. Historically, as observed by ref. [23,37,44], women’s participation in male-dominated careers, particularly academic careers, suffered setbacks due to specific stratification attributes that characterised tradition, gender hierarchies, and norms prevailing in the clan, family, and society. Hence, certain cultural or traditional structures support male dominance in a social context [37,44,45]. This stratification often causes women’s work roles to be marginalised within the organisational policies and practices [37,46,47,48]. Nonetheless, the sociocultural and employment biases created due to cultural stratification critically affected female construction graduates’ career choices, training, recruitment, and advancement [21,22,37].

Consequently, scholars also attributed barriers to female construction graduates’ entry into academic careers to the absence of role modelling, mentor–mentee relationships, and low exposure to career paths and opportunities [6,37,44]. The traditional beliefs among family or parents often discourage females from pursuing careers in construction (professional practices and academia). Marra [20,49,50] maintained that poor advising and teaching, lack of family support, and blind cultural setup create difficulties in career path opportunities for women’s workforce value, particularly in academics. These circumstances are evidenced in the role-stereotyped upbringing of females in most families, denying them exposure to career paths in construction from an early age [38]. Thus, women’s career choices in construction, engineering, and science-based education have significantly been influenced by prominent gender segregation and role stereotyping [37].

Furthermore, ref. [37] observed that barriers to women’s career choices in STEM-related subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) could be attributed to psychosocial influences. Psychosocial describes the superordinate attributes like psychological or emotional well-being and social and collective well-being [51,52]. It often influences future career choices, levels of achievement, and perspectives. These attributes of psychosocial influence determine the performance of students’ learning in STEM-related subjects. Likewise, ref. [37] posited that poor performance in mathematics or construction is linked to psychological issues and societal differences that make up males compared to females. Notably, the attributes related to the absence of supportive gender policies predominantly affect balancing women’s representation in male-dominated careers [37]. According to refs. [37,42,53], several organisational policies were developed globally. The structures and functions of such policies do not always support women’s career patterns and their need to integrate work with family responsibilities [37,48,54].

Subsequently, the negative perception of the construction field due to its non-gender-inclusive nature concerning women’s recruitment, development, and career advancement often led to sexual harassment, bullying, and discrimination [6,37,54,55,56]. Van-Veelen [17,20,22] attributed the barriers to female construction graduates’ entry into academic careers to lower publication outputs, demanding workplace conditions, and competency discrimination. The set of negative perceptions towards academic careers and the anecdotal feedback about negative experiences and low enrolments affected the recruitment of female graduates’ faculties globally [37,55]. Nonetheless, ref. [18] further informed that the external and internal problems affecting the gender balance of female construction graduates include low wages, time demands, demand for continuous development, high degree of workload, work–life balance problems, job satisfaction, and fear of sexual harassment. Thus, the identified barriers to female construction graduates in male-dominated professions are summarised in Table 1.