3. Occupational Choice and Development
Learning Objectives
• How do people view work? How do occupational
priorities vary with age?
• How do people choose their occupations?
• What factors influence occupational development?
• What expectations do people have about
occupations?
• What role do mentors play in occupational
development
• What factors influence job satisfaction? What causes
alienation and burnout?
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4. Occupational Choice and Development
The Meaning of Work
• Although most people work for money, other reasons
are highly variable.
– They include, prestige, recognition, and a sense of worth.
• Occupational priorities have changed over time.
– Younger workers’ expectations from their occupations are
lower and their emphasis on personal growth is higher.
• In the longitudinal AT&T study, changes in workers'
priorities have been documented.
– The shorter the time a person had been on the job the lesser
their expectations of rewards (and vice versa).
• However, this was only true for high-level management.
• Lower-level management showed a decline over time.
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5. Occupational Choice and Development
The Changing Nature of Work
• Globalization of work has resulted in changes in the
number and types of jobs available to workers in the
United States.
– For example, between 1987 and 1994 there were
more than 7 million permanent layoffs in the U.S.
• These layoffs were not caused by companies losing
money, but by:
– Changes in competition
– Productivity
– Relocation of operations
– Mergers and acquisitions
– Infusion of new technology
– Plant obsolescence
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6. Occupational Choice and Development
The Changing Nature of Work (cont.)
• Because of this changing nature of work:
– Managers and workers must adopt different
leadership styles and assume more autonomy.
– There is also an increased need to stay current
with the latest technology and newest skills.
• As the nature of work has changed, so has the work
force.
– The median age of the work force has increased
steadily.
• It is expected to reach 41.40 years by 2012.
– The “graying of the work force” is becoming more
common as there are fewer instances of
mandatory retirement at 55 and over.
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7. Occupational Choice and Development
Occupational Choice
• Holland’s theory of Occupational Choice
– Holland’s theory is focused on the idea that people
choose occupations that optimize the fit between
their individual traits and their occupational
interests.
– Six personality types that represent different
combinations have been identified.
• Investigative
• Social
• Realistic
• Artistic
• Conventional
• Enterprising
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8. Occupational Choice and Development
Occupational Development
• Super’s theory
• Super describes five stages in adulthood, based on
self-concept and adaptation to an occupational role.
– Implementation
– Establishment
– Maintenance
– Deceleration
– Retirement
• The more congruent a person’s occupational
behaviors are with what is expected of them at
different ages, the more vocationally mature they are.
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9. Occupational Choice and Development
Occupational Expectations
• People have expectations about what they want to
become and when they hope to get there.
– Expectations change as the result of:
• Realizing that one’s interests have changed or the dream was
not a good fit
• But also due to age, race, or sexual discrimination, lack of
opportunity, and obsolescence of skills
• Reality Shock
– The realization that one’s expectations about an occupation
are different from the reality one experiences.
• Reality shock is common among young workers.
• This happens most to young adults and people with little relevant
experience prior to assuming a new job.
• The outcome of reality shock is often a revision of
personal priorities in life.
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10. Occupational Choice and Development
Role of Mentors
• A mentor is a coworker who teaches a new employee
the unwritten rules and fosters occupational
development.
• Mentor-protégé relationships develop over time,
through stages, like other relationships.
– Being a mentor helps middle-aged workers achieve
generativity.
• Kram suggests that a four-stage sequence occurs in
mentor-protégé relationships:
– Initiation
– Cultivation
– Separation
– Redefinition
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11. Occupational Choice and Development
Job Satisfaction
• The positive feelings that results from an
appraisal of one’s work
• Job satisfactions tends to show low to
moderate increases with age.
– Older workers report higher job satisfaction than
younger workers.
• This may be partly because of self-selection.
– Unhappy workers may quit.
• Other reasons include intrinsic satisfaction, good fit, lower
importance of work, finding non-work diversions, and life-
cycle factors.
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12. Occupational Choice and Development
Alienation and Burnout
• Alienation
– Feeling that what one is doing is meaningless
• Burnout
– Too much stress in one’s occupation and can lead
to:
• Loss of energy and motivation
• Loss of occupational idealism
• Feeling that one is being exploited
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14. Gender, Ethnicity, Bias, and Discrimination
Learning Objectives
• How do women and men’s occupational expectations
differ? How are people viewed when they enter
occupations that are not traditional for their gender?
• What factors are related to women’s occupational
development?
• What factors affect ethnic minority workers’
occupational experiences and occupational
development?
• What types of bias and discrimination hinder the
occupational development of women and ethnic
minority workers?
• What types of bias and discrimination hinder the
occupational development of older workers?
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15. Gender, Ethnicity, Bias, and Discrimination
Gender Differences in Occupational Choice
• Traditionally:
– Men are groomed from childhood for future employment.
– Women have not been trained in that manner.
• Currently, 71% of women work outside of the home,
with this number on the rise (Department of Labor,
2006).
– Many women have difficulty finding occupations that match
their level of skill.
– Women in nontraditional occupations are viewed more poorly
by both men and women.
– Women in traditional female occupations changed jobs less
often.
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16. Gender, Ethnicity, Bias, and Discrimination
Traditional and Nontraditional Occupations
• Research in this area has focused on three issues:
1. Selection of nontraditional occupations
2. Characteristics of women in nontraditional
occupations
3. Perceptions of nontraditional occupations
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17. Gender, Ethnicity, Bias, and Discrimination
Women and Occupational Development
• Betz found that 10 years after college graduation:
– Only 1% of women had been full-time homemakers.
– While 79% reported having successfully combined work and
family.
• Women who leave well-paid occupations do so for
many reasons, including:
– Family obligations for women working part-time
– Workplace issues for women working full-time
• Women who continue to work full-time:
– Have adequate child care
– Look for ways to further their occupational development
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18. Gender, Ethnicity, Bias, and Discrimination
Ethnicity and Occupational Development
• African American and European American women do
not differ in plans to enter nontraditional occupations.
– But African American women plan for more education.
• Vocational identity
– The degree to which one views one’s occupation as a key
element of identity
– African American and European American men have higher
vocational identity when they graduate from college.
– Hispanics have high occupational aspirations, but low
expectations.
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19. Gender, Ethnicity, Bias, and Discrimination
Bias and Discrimination
• Sex discrimination
– Denying a job to someone solely on the basis of whether the
person is a man or a women
– Sex discrimination is a major issue, in terms of getting jobs,
occupational development, and also in pay.
• Glass ceiling
– The level to which women may rise in a company, but not go
beyond
– This is a barrier to promotion women and ethnic minorities
often experience.
• Glass elevator
– In traditionally female occupations, men may rise much
faster than female counterparts.
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20. Gender, Ethnicity, Bias, and Discrimination
Bias and Discrimination (cont.)
• Pay inequity
– Women get paid a fraction of what men with similar jobs
earn.
– Equalizing pay in occupations that are determined to be
equivalent in importance, but differ in the gender distribution
of the people doing the jobs
– Comparable worth
• Sexual harassment
• The reasonable woman (person) standard is used to
decide whether an act constitutes harassment.
– If a reasonable women would view a behavior as offensive
then it is offensive even if the man did not conceive it as so.
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21. Gender, Ethnicity, Bias, and Discrimination
Age Discrimination
• Making employment decisions only on the
basis of age or denying employment or
promotion if the worker is over the age of 40.
• Age discrimination occurs in many ways,
such as differential layoff patterns and
stereotypical views about older workers.
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23. Occupational Transitions
Learning Objectives
• Why do people change occupations?
• Why is worker retraining necessary and important?
• How does the timing of job loss affect the amount of
stress one experiences?
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24. Occupational Transitions
Occupational Change
• Factors influencing occupational change include:
– Dislike
• Which results in quitting or seeking other employment
– Worker obsolescence
• For example, technological developments that eliminate
jobs
– Economic factors which result in layoffs or
downsizing
• For example, recessions
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25. Occupational Transitions
Retraining Workers
• Rapid changes in the nature of work have resulted in the
displacement of older workers.
– According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census:
• 51.4% of workers 55 to 64 years old do not find new employment
• Whereas 65% to 70% of workers under 35 do find new employment
• As a result, there is greater career plateauing.
– When there is a lack of promotional opportunity in an
organization or a person chooses not to seek advancement
– Thus, learning new skills is essential to maximize one’s
opportunities.
• To adapt to the effects of the global economy and an
aging work force, many corporations provide retraining
opportunities for workers.
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26. Occupational Transitions
Occupational Insecurity and Job Loss
• Occupational insecurity is a growing problem.
– Fear that one may lose one’s job is a better predictor of anxiety
than the actual likelihood of job loss.
• Losing one's job can have serious negative effects on
every aspect of a person’s life.
– May result in mental health problems, including:
• Low self-esteem
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Suicide
• These effects are related to the degree of financial
stress one is under and the timing of the job loss.
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28. Dual-Earner Couples
Learning Objectives
• What are the issues faced by employed people who
care for dependents?
• How do partners view the division of household
chores?
• What is work-family conflict? How does it affect
couples’ lives?
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29. Dual-Earner Couples
• In nearly 2/3 of two-parent households, both
adults work outside the home.
• Nearly 1/2 of unmarried mothers and 56% of
married mothers with children under the age
of 1 are currently in the work force.
– These numbers are increasing.
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30. Dual-Earner Couples
The Dependent Care Dilemma
• Employed Caregivers
• Whether a women returns to work after having a child
depends largely on how attached she is to her work.
– This can lead to inter-role conflict.
• Conflicts between work and family responsibilities
• Flexible work schedules and number of children are
important factors in role conflict.
– Employed mothers are significantly less distressed than
employed non-mothers.
• When a woman’s partner provides good support and women
have average or high control over their jobs
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31. Dual-Earner Couples
Dependent Care and Employer Response
• The mere availability of a workplace childcare center
does not always result in higher job satisfaction.
– Sympathetic supervisors are essential to lowering
the stress of how child care issues can be
resolved.
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32. Dual-Earner Couples
Juggling Multiple Roles
• Dividing household chores
– Working mothers spend about twice as many hours per
week as their husbands in family work and bear the greatest
responsibility for household tasks.
• Unequal division of labor is a major cause for arguments and
unhappiness.
• Husbands and wives view the division of labor in very
different terms.
– Men are often most satisfied with an equitable division
based on number of hours spent, especially if the amount of
time is small.
– Women are most satisfied when men perform traditional
women’s chores.
– Ethnic differences are apparent.
• African American and Hispanic men spend more time on
household chores that European American men.
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33. Dual-Earner Couples
Work-Family Conflict
• The feeling of being pulled in multiple directions by
incompatible demands from one’s job and one’s
family
• How to deal with work-family conflict successfully
– Women must be clear in their commitment to their careers,
marriage, and children.
– Couples equally share housework and emotional work, and
combine their roles without high levels of stress.
• How?
– Age of children is not a factor, but number of children is.
– Stress is lower if men have a flexible work schedule that
allow them to care for sick children and other matters.
– Stress is higher during the peak parenting years, then is
reduced.
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35. Leisure Activities
Learning Objectives
• What types of leisure activities do adults exhibit?
• What developmental differences are there in leisure
activities?
• What do people derive from leisure activities?
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36. Leisure Activities
Types of Leisure Activities
• Four categories are usually used to help organize
leisure activities:
– Cultural
– Physical
– Social
– Solitary
• Leisure activities can also be considered in terms of
the degree of cognitive, emotional, or physical
involvement.
• Preoccupations
– Ideas and feelings about things one would like to do can
become more focused as interests.
• This can lead to the selection of particular leisure activities.
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37. Leisure Activities
Types of Leisure Activities (cont.)
• People develop a repertoire of preferred leisure
activities.
– Each activity has a different meaning and
importance to every individual.
– The activities are determined by perceived
competence and psychological comfort.
• Perceived competence - how good we think we are at
the activity compared to others
• Psychological comfort - how well we meet our personal
goals for performance
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38. Leisure Activities
Developmental Changes in Leisure
• Longitudinal research shows that leisure preferences
in adulthood reflect those in earlier life.
– However, as people grow older they tend to engage in
leisure activities that are less strenuous and more family-
oriented.
Consequences of Leisure Activities
• Leisure activities promote well-being and can
enhance all aspects of people’s lives.
– Importantly, it is the amount of satisfaction you derive from
your leisure activities; not your level of participation.
• Quality rather than quantity of leisure activities
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40. Retirement
Learning Objectives
• What does being retired mean?
• Why do people retire?
• How should people prepare for retirement?
• How satisfied are retired people?
• What specific effects does retirement have on
maintaining family and community ties?
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41. Retirement
What Does Being Retired Mean?
• Retirement is largely a development of the 20th
century and is still an evolving concept.
• What does being retired mean?
– The way in which people withdraw from full-time employment
• Changing conceptions of work are resulting in
changing conceptions of retirement.
– Retirement can be crisp or blurred.
• Crisp - making a clean break from employment by stopping work
entirely
• Blurred - repeatedly leaving and returning to work, with some
periods of unemployment
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42. Retirement
Why do People Retire?
• Most people retire because they choose to.
– Although some people are forced to retire because of
financial status or serious health problems
• Health
– The most important factor in determining early retirement and
satisfaction
• Gender differences
– Married women's decision to retire is predicted most by her
husbands health status or number of dependents, the
opposite is true for men.
• Ethnic differences
– African Americans tend to label themselves as retired or not
retired based on subjective disability, work history, and source
of income rather than on whether they are currently
employed.
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44. Retirement
Adjustment to Retirement
• Retirement is an important life transition and can be
stressful.
– However, the degree of stress is related to attitudes
toward retirement and whether retirement is
voluntary.
• Most people are satisfied with their retirement, as long
as people:
– Have financial security
– Have their health
– Have a supportive network of relatives and friends
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45. Retirement
Adjustment to Retirement (cont.)
• High satisfaction in early retirement includes:
– For men
• Being in good health
• Having enough income
• Having retired voluntarily
– For women
• No one role was associated with satisfaction
• For both men and women high personal competence
was associated with higher retirement satisfaction over
the long run.
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46. Retirement
Interpersonal Ties
• All aspects of a person's life and interpersonal
relationships are affected by retirement.
– Marital relationships
• May undergo
considerable
stress until new
role definitions
are reached
– Readjusting to being home rather than at work is difficult for
men in traditional marriages
– Sometimes marriages are disrupted, but married men are
generally happier in retirement than men who are not 46 of 44
married.
47. Retirement
Community Ties
• Volunteering to maintain community ties
– Foster Grandparents, Senior Companions, Retired Senior
Volunteer Program (RSVP), and Service Corps or Retired
Executives (SCORE)
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