Children’s Reasoning about Future Careers: Hierarchies, Gender, and SES

• In Event: Developmental Roots and Predictors of Career Aspirations and Disparities

Abstract

How do children begin to think about their own future career goals, and the value of different potential pursuits? Past studies have focused on children’s understanding of and aspirations toward specific careers. However, open questions remain regarding children’s more general conceptualization of professional attainment, and their perception of a relation between the status of a position, its desirability, and its relation to life fulfillment. To begin to fill this gap, this study examined (1) how children conceptualize hierarchies with regard to hypothetical career attainment; (2) whether children aspire toward and expect to obtain higher- or lower-level careers within a hierarchy, and view those positions as related to happiness; and (3) whether gender and SES relate to children’s likelihood of envisioning themselves at the top of a hierarchy.

We introduced 300 5–10-year-old participants (50% girls, Mage = 8.05, SDage = 1.74) from socioeconomically diverse backgrounds to a novel professional setting, depicted by a five-level hierarchy with stick figures representing workers. We randomly assigned participants to the Pyramid Hierarchy condition, in which the hierarchy contained fewer workers in top than bottom levels or the Equal Hierarchy condition, in which each level contained an equal number of workers. We asked participants to point to the levels where jobs are hardest/easiest to get, provide the smallest/biggest amount of money, and where people are happiest/saddest. We then asked participants to point to the levels where people are smartest, nicest, and most hardworking. Afterwards, we asked children which job level they would want (aspiration) and which level they would actually attain (expectation) as adults.

With age, children increasingly said jobs at the top of the hierarchy are harder to get, provide more money, and contain happier workers (ps <.001). Further, with age, children viewed people with higher-level jobs as smarter (p = .001), but people with lower-level jobs as nicer (p < .001) and harder working (p = .012).

Regarding their own aspirations, boys (but not girls) were increasingly likely with age to aspire to higher-level jobs, especially in the Pyramid Hierarchy condition (where status was conferred to a smaller number of people, potentially signaling competition). Further, girls (but not boys) in the Pyramid (but not Equal Numbers) Hierarchy were less likely with age to expect to have higher-level jobs (Figure 1). Additionally, children’s aspired jobs were higher on the hierarchy than their expected jobs (b = .65, p < .001), and this aspiration-expectation gap was wider among older (vs. younger) children (b = -.17, p = .005) and children from families with higher (vs. lower) income (Figure 2).

Our findings suggest children’s conceptualization of professional attainment develop over ages 5 to 10. Moreover, gender and SES disparities in aspirations toward high-level positions emerge as early as elementary school.

Authors

• Reut Shachnai, Yale University
  Presenting Author

• Isobel A Heck, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Rachel Ann King, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katherine D. Kinzler, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author