Exploring adolescents' occupational possible selves: The role of gender and socioeconomic status

Abstract

Adolescence is an important stage in forming one's identity and developing career inspirations. The current empirical study aims to investigate gender and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in adolescents’ occupational possible selves. A total of 3336 sixth- to eighth-grade students participated in the survey research and reported (1) hoped-for occupation, (2) desire for the hoped-for occupation, (3) likelihood of attaining the hoped-for occupation, and (4) whether and what actions were taken toward the hoped-for occupation. A series of regression models and advanced natural language processing techniques were applied to the survey data. Results revealed evident gender differences and some nuanced SES differences in the named occupational possible selves with a significant interaction between gender and SES on adolescents’ career-related actions. However, this study did not find gender or SES differences in adolescents’ desire to pursue their occupational possible selves.