Career orientation and its early antecedents in the context of longitudinal research.
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| Year of publication | 2012 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | A persons occupation is an important aspect of ones successful development (e.g. Pulkkinen, Nygren, Kokko, 2002). Having a job means not only creating new social relationships, resolving existential issues and maintaining positive self-esteem, but it is also a manifestation of adaptation to the norms and demands of society, fulfillment of developmental tasks (Havighurst, 1972). Longitudinal design is the best way to study this domain. Brno Longitudinal Study of Life-Span Development, running since 1961, currently comprises 83 participants aged 41 to 44 years. In this part of the study we focused on child and adolescent antecedents of career orientation (indexed by stability of career line and long-term unemployment). Only personality characteristics (especially extroversion) in the middle adolescence were directly related to the career orientation. In adulthood, by contrast, no significant associations with extroversion were found. Atmosphere in the family of origin, intelligence and school achievement had only an indirect connection to the career orientation. The job career area shows rather specific features compared to other (especially Western European and American) longitudinal research studies. To explain them one has to consider the macro-contextual changes (economic, political) which had occurred in the Czech Republic at the time our study participants had entered the labor market. |