Career counselling for female international doctoral students from the Global South

Among the growing body of literature on female international PhD students, less critical attention is paid to non-traditional women doctoral students from the Global South. These students often encounter an array of challenges in their academic pursuit and career progression, including professional identity crises, work-life balance tensions, and mental health concerns. In this conceptual article, we argue that career human agency theory (CHAT) offers a useful lens for understanding these challenges and informing career counselling interventions for this under-researched group. Our core contribution is to show how CHAT can be operationalised through narrative career counselling approaches to enhance career agency of female international doctoral students. Specifically, we draw on four key CHAT-informed concepts, i.e., career self-efficacy, self-knowledge, self-concept, and self-creation , and propose two narrative counselling interventions – the storytelling approach and Cochran’s narrative career counselling – as illustrative approaches to foster career agency and support more sustainable career pathways. The article concludes by outlining its conceptual and practical contributions, acknowledging its limitations, and identifying directions for future research.