The Impact of Child-Parent Relationship on Young Adults’ Career Choice

Abstract

Career choice is one of the most importance decision that young adults make, which may impact them for a long time. Decades of research studying the factors that influence young adults career choice established the critical role that parents play in shaping their child’s career decisions. However, there has been no definitive understanding of the child-parent relationship quality as an influencing factor to the specific type of jobs young adults select. This study aimed to bridge this gap by examining the relationship between the quality of the child-parent relationship and the child’s career choice using job stability as a measure. It first evaluated the job stability measure for each career category by comparing the perceived job stability data from young adults with the data published by the government. It then quantified the child-parent relationship quality and examined how it related to the job stability data. The results showed that there were weak positive correlations between the child-parent relationship and the stability of child’s career, which countered the initial hypothesis that young adults who enjoy better relationships with their parents are more likely to choose a less stable career. This study also explored other factors that may influence young adults’ career decisions, and provided directions for future investigations in this field.