Female Students' Career Choices: How Gendered Role Affects Women'S Participation In Nigerian Real Estate Profession

A career decision is a crucial task, often impacted by events and circumstances rather than the training the students receive in school. Female graduates in the built environment are frequently conservative in their career choices in the real estate industry; as a result, women are underrepresented. This study employs quantitative and quantitative research designs to explore how graduating female real estate students' experiences influence their long-term career choices and how their choices affect women's participation in Nigeria's real estate profession. A survey of graduating female real estate students from two universities and two polytechnics in South-west Nigeria was used to collect quantitive data for the study. Qualitative data was gathered through interviews with recent female real estate graduates. The analysis presents the study's findings on students' motivation for pursuing a real estate degree, challenges encountered in real estate education, perceptions of the real estate practice environment, and how these experiences influence their long-term career choices. The study concludes that the real estate practice environment is unappealing to female graduates. Hence, there is a need for concerted efforts toward attracting and retaining female graduates in the real estate profession to support the industry's business development and growth.