Empowering Cambodian women to pursue advanced degrees: A review of barriers and recommendations

Cambodia has made considerable progress in developing its higher education system, including efforts to promote gender equality in the sector. However, empowering female students to pursue advanced degrees, especially doctoral degrees, remains a challenge. Drawing on secondary sources and employing a literature review approach, this article aims to discuss key barriers that hinder Cambodian women from pursuing advanced degrees, particularly PhDs, and provides recommendations for supporting them to pursue such degrees. Key barriers identified by a review of relevant literature include socio-cultural constraints, limited national and institutional support mechanisms, financial constraints, and personal and family-related constraints. The article proposes recommendations for various stakeholders, including government agencies and policymakers, higher education institutions, families, women themselves, and other concerned stakeholders such as international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and development partners, to play their part in cultivating a more supportive and conducive environment for Cambodian women to pursue advanced degrees, especially PhD degrees. The article concludes with a summary of key barriers and recommendations for supporting Cambodian women in pursuing advanced degrees, as well as offers suggestions for future research to explore the phenomenon of Cambodian women’s participation in doctoral education to enhance our understanding of how Cambodian women can be empowered through education and research to strengthen their roles and contributions to the higher education sector and Cambodian society.