Senior High School Students’ Job Planning for the Future: What Factors Really Matter?

Job orientation, defined as how adolescents anticipate and construct their future employment, is a multidimensional and multistage phenomenon. Studies have indicated that how adolescents anticipate and plan for their future job is greatly influenced by the particular context in which they are placed, but most of the research in this area has been conducted with adolescents from western cultures. As Romanian senior high school students face a complex set of future occupational options, how and if the decision is influenced by personal or social factors is an important question of interest. This study examines future job planning of adolescents in contemporary Romania and its relation to adolescents’ self-confidence, family, peer group and community support. We administered a questionnaire to 905 senior high schoolers. Results show that adolescents’ future job planning is influenced mainly by the level of self-confidence and family support while peer group and neighborhood support were less successful as predictors. Compared with boys, girls are more likely to plan having a job in the near future; adolescents from urban areas are more likely to think about employment.

Keywords: adolescents, job planning, self-confidence, family, peer-group, community support, discriminant analysis