Abstract
Amidst growing academic job market saturation, doctoral education faces urgent calls to reorient PhD training toward diverse career pathways. Yet, it remains unclear how well current reforms address structural barriers, particularly for Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) graduates. This integrative systematic review synthesises 27 empirical studies (2015–2024), identified through Scopus and Eric, using the SPIDER framework and critically appraised via CASP. A two-stage critical thematic synthesis, inductive coding followed by deductive analysis, applied Bourdieu’s concepts of field, capital, and habitus to uncover patterns in doctoral career transitions. Three key themes emerged: persistent structural inequalities, disciplinary hierarchies, and symbolic violence constrain the career choices of PhD holders, disproportionately affecting those in HASS fields. While reforms in doctoral education often emphasise transferable skills and individualised development, they fail to challenge the entrenched field dynamics that continue to shape employability. Most studies reviewed were from Anglophone countries and featured moderate methodological variation. Findings call for a fundamental reimagining of doctoral education as a pluralistic space that values diverse forms of capital and career trajectories. Future research should move beyond Anglophone settings and critically examine how institutional and employer practices’ structure doctoral outcomes. Without systematic change, field-specific disparities in PhD career pathways are likely to persist.