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It is contested to what extent public employment services (PES) help build resilience in young unemployed people. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 19 people born in Germany and Norway between 1990 and 1995, the article examines stories about how PES, in two different activation regimes, help young people find meaningful work. The analysis and discussion are carried out within a theoretical framework that combines the capability approach with social resilience literature in a novel way. The findings show that PES are portrayed as being more present in young Germans' lives. The German informants seem to feel undue pressure from PES and they describe differences between personal aims and the "placement priority" of PES. Sanctions imposed by PES were also a much more predominant topic among the German informants. The Norwegian data were dominated by stories about young people in activation programmes who had been demotivated by being trapped in a cycle of programme participation, which did not result in employment. Across the two countries, our data suggest that PES rarely build social resilience: PES provided young people with a means to survive, but rarely helped to build their capacity to overcome their difficult situation. In line with previous research, the stories of young Germans and Norwegians also emphasise the need for a PES that provides tailor‐made services that build on young people's motivation and ambition. The article demonstrates that combining the capability approach with social resilience theory enables a dynamic perspective on the development of people's capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

E Hine was a longitudinal qualitative Kaupapa Māori (by Māori, for Māori) research study involving 44 young Māori women who were first interviewed in 2012‐2013 and followed through their pregnancies and until their babies were 2 years old. The present analysis of the E Hine database examines the young women's experiences of accessing welfare benefits through Work and Income. Welfare benefits were not the central focus of the E Hine study, but often came up in conversations with the young women and their whānau (family). As a result, E Hine offers those considering ways to improve welfare benefit policy and service delivery a frank account of how young Māori mothers and their whānau see and experience the system. Four themes arose from participants' talk: what being on the benefit was like, their positive and negative impressions of Work and Income, and how they took control of their situation. In common with other recent qualitative studies, the findings suggest potential to improve the experience of the welfare benefit system by providing support within the context of culturally‐responsive, caring, trust relationships that help unlock the potential of young Māori parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study posits a bioecological positivity to success (BEPS) model and examines how diverse bioecological factors predict graduates' career success. The BEPS model with an emphasis on hard (e.g. science, technology, engineering and mathematics [STEM]) and soft (e.g. interpersonal and critical thinking) skills generate a hypothetical model: positive aspects of person (mathematical/hard and affective/soft abilities), process (effective hard and soft competencies learning in higher education) and proximal contexts (original family income and present employment status) predict graduates' career success (job income and perceived extrinsic, intrinsic and autonomy satisfaction) in early adulthood. Gender, studying STEM, and study years are also included as predictors in the path analysis as control. Path analyses examine the model with cohort data from the Taiwan Education Panel Survey (TEPS) and its follow-up (TEPS-B), which are longitudinal studies of a group of young people (n = 2,700) since grade 7 till age 24–25 years old. Results reveal that soft skills and employment play the most significant roles in graduates' career success. Hard skills play a minor role. Findings support the BEPS model and provide implications for educational practices and policymaking to emphasise on soft skills learning, employability and entrepreneurship education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the harsh Chinese graduate labor market, urban, middle-class students continue to outpace those from rural, underprivileged backgrounds in job access and occupational attainment. Literature attributes this graduate employment gap to varied accumulation of social capital embedded in their social network, leading to advantages of middle-class. This social network-capital approach, however, rarely revealed the influences of a gradually established market system and ignored the agency of the individual job seekers. To gain a more comprehensive understanding towards this graduate employment discrepancy, this article examines the behaviors of the graduates not only in their job search processes, but also during campus experiences. Inspired by the concept habitus, this study aims to understand the cultural processes that underlie individual advancement throughout higher education, and consequently, the transition from higher education to the labor market. Drawn upon the interview data, this article found that middle-class students, compared with their underprivileged counterparts, have more sophisticated understanding towards a competitive labor market, higher level of confidence in mobilizing their agency, and apply more strategic plans towards future. This article argues that these delicately constructed middle-class disposition and behaviors guided by such disposition jointly contribute to the better performances of middle-class during job search. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses the link between overeducation and intention to migrate to the Greater Bay Area (GBA) cities in mainland China in a sample of Hong Kong's young adults employed in lower occupational classes (elementary occupations, plant and machine operators and assemblers, craft and related workers, and service and sales workers). The results indicate that overeducation has a unique negative effect on attitudes towards migration to GBA. The findings suggest that social capital theory rather than human capital theory is better able to explain the motivation of Hong Kong's young people to invest in higher education. This research may help policy makers review the expansion of higher education in Hong Kong and provide valuable policy implications for regional integration between Hong Kong and mainland China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in the values and careers of particularly younger employees and changes in organizations, including the reduction of hierarchical levels and greater use of teams and matrix structures--combined with new communication technologies and more social networking--have produced calls for new organization theories for these new realities. Using organizational power and influence as a focus, I argue that fundamental theoretical processes remain largely unchanged in their explanatory power, in part because such phenomena can be linked to survival advantages. The new workers-new work arguments are consistent with the continuing emphasis on novelty and theoretical innovation in the organization sciences, an emphasis that, while promulgated in virtually all the journals, may poorly serve the development of reliable and valid knowledge and hinder our ability to provide useful advice for both organizations a their employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vocational education and training (VET) is high on the European agenda. This article adds nuance to the policy ambition of "fixing" parents' views on VET. It is based on extensive qualitative research in Romania, with over 250 young people. An unanticipated finding was the "absence" of parents from the young people's accounts, along with a tendency by the teachers and employers to blame young people for having "unreasonable expectations." This article explores the deeper structural reasons for the current state of "parental disengagement." It links parents' precarious working lives with young people's sense of disillusionment and communist nostalgia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasingly complex relationship between educational qualifications and employment is an integral, yet little-explored dimension of the labour market developments that have come to be referred to as the 'gig economy'. This article explores the changing meaning and relevance of education through an analysis of young people's employment outcomes in terms of employment status, having a job in their field of study and job satisfaction. It shows that while higher levels of education do provide some protection from unemployment, the relationship is murky. A relatively large proportion of highly educated young adults are experiencing underemployment and precarious work. Young women are less engaged in the labour market. Furthermore, those with secure jobs do not necessarily find them meaningful and those with meaningful jobs are not necessarily in secure employment. For many young people, using their educational qualifications to find security in work is a bit like 'chasing rainbows'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the characteristics, experiences, and motivations of men and women who secure work through digital platforms. Drawing on quantitative survey data – the first of its kind – of Australian men (n = 251) and women (n = 253) it finds that the gig economy, much like the wider economy, is highly gender-segregated. Men dominate platforms which specialise in what might be considered traditionally male tasks like transport and women dominate platforms which specialise in more traditional female tasks like caring. The results suggest that the gig economy may be an alternative for women in the creative industries. Men and women are both drawn to the gig economy for income-related reasons, despite a significant proportion of them holding a job outside the gig economy. Flexibility was an important motivator for both genders, but women were more likely than men to report that they did gig work because it 'fitted with their schedule', indicating that non-work commitments such as family constrain women more than men. More men than women reported that gig work was effective in generating income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including employment of young adults, gig economy, and gender inequality.

This work presents findings from a qualitative multi-case study investigating the lives of young, precariously employed academics working at a large Australian university. The lived experience of precarious employment is explored through a temporal analysis of how lifestyles are conceived and constructed under the conditions of liquid modernity. The findings highlight how participants felt limited in their capacity to commit to long-term life plans due to invasive feelings of insecurity and dependency that confronted participants with feelings of inadequacy. Participants referred to an inability to make adult-like decisions and bind themselves to future commitments such as independent living arrangements and starting a family. Engagement with concepts of temporality assisted in the theorising of a 'continuous present', which refers to the deferring and sacrificing of lifestyle plans in the hope for an imaginary future that never seems to arrive. This theorisation contributes an understanding of how precarious employment can disrupt the flow of culturally acceptable expectations surrounding adulthood and how precarity develops over time. The analysis illustrates that an extended durée of precarious employment increases precarity beyond the present and into the future temporal zone of young peoples' lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors investigate the effect of skin tone on labor market outcomes to determine the extent to which differences in full-time employment probabilities are due to the persistence of racial and gender discrimination or other unobserved differences. Using the Coronary Artery Risk in Young Adults (CARDIA) survey for the period spanning 1985 to 2000, which includes both African American and white young adults, as well as an objective measure of skin tone from a light-spectrometer and a self-reported measure of race, they find that the effect of skin tone on employment diminished over time. These results hold across both samples as well as within the African American subsample. Further investigation indicates that all the labor market gains can be attributed to African American women, whose outcomes converged with those of their white counterparts by 2000. Similarly, within the subsample, the employment outcomes of darker-toned women converged with those of lighter-toned women. There were no changes in the employment probabilities for African American men in the 15-year panel data. The expansion of full-time employment opportunities occurred primarily in the low-skilled service occupations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young adults in Australia, and in many other advanced countries, are more likely to be highly educated but less likely to be in full-time employment than their parents were. Although insecure employment has long been a feature of labour markets, increased labour flexibility in recent decades has resulted in insecure employment becoming entrenched. In this article, we draw on data from young people in their early twenties to examine the interrelationships between work and life. Although we focus on the association between precarious employment and sense of personal control, we also examine the interrelationships between sense of personal control, education, relationships and health. Rather than experiencing a short period of insecure employment before transitioning into permanent jobs, young people now experience a 'new adulthood' characterised by extended periods of insecurity, undermining their sense of personal control. Our aim is to identify what it takes to make a secure, healthy and meaningful life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Europe, falling fertility rates are regarded as part of a second demographic transition precipitated by changing values. Low fertility rates in developed Asian countries, however, are thought to be due to decreasing marriage rates, as a result of worsening young men's employment. This study proposes the hypothesis that men in non-regular employment – those with low incomes and those who are unemployed – have lower probabilities of getting married. Male employment was analyzed using a logistic regression of micro data for 20- to 49-year-old men in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the UK, France, and Sweden. The study's findings generally supported the hypothesis and clearly confirmed that there is a relationship between employment and marriage in Asian countries, and especially in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Job quality of young adults in the USA has been eroding since the Great Recession of 2007. The intensity of job search activities are a well-established predictor of employment, yet little is known whether job search intensity is associated with the quality of subsequent secured employment. This study examined the 2013 sample of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) (N = 1566), which follows a sample of American youth born between 1980 and 1984 and contains reliable measures of job search activities and job quality. Multivariate regression models examined whether job search activities were associated with pay, paid vacation days, full time job status, regular work schedule, and availability of a union contract, controlling for demographic factors. The results demonstrated that the number of job search activities completed was positively associated with multiple positive employment-related outcomes. Programs to assist individuals in the job search process may benefit from these results when offering strategies for successfully securing employment of a higher quality that may offer increased quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the Luxembourg Income Study, we conduct a gender comparison of how young people aged 20–34 in Finland (n  = 19,941), Spain (n  = 29,458), Taiwan (n  = 47,219), and the United States (n  = 184,581) participated in full time work, short-hours or temporary work, education, and homemaking before and after the Great Recession (GR) beginning 2008. Gender and country patterns varied substantially. In Finland, the GR was associated with higher proportions of young women homemaking, perhaps due to public support for home care of children. In Spain and the United States, higher proportions of both young men and young women were un- or underemployed post-GR, suggesting downward gender convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: (1) To determine patterns of return to work (RTW) after traumatic brain injury and other causes of acquired brain injury (ABI) among young adults aged 19–30 years and (2) to compare the stability of long-term labor-market attachment (LMA) to the background population. Method: Nationwide registry-based inception cohort study of 10 years weekly data of employment status. Patients (n = 8,496) aged 19–30 years with first-ever diagnosis of TBI, stroke, subarachnoid hemorrhage, encephalopathy, brain tumor, or CNS infections during 1999–2015. For comparison, a general population cohort (n = 206,025) individually matched on age, sex, and municipality was identified. The main outcome was RTW, which was defined as time to LMA, i.e., a week without public assistance benefits except education grants/leave. Stable labor-market attachment (sLMA) was defined as LMA for at least 75% over 52 weeks. The cumulative incidence proportions of RTW and stable RTW in the ABI cohort were estimated with the Aalen-Johansen estimator with death as a competing event. Results: Twelve weeks after diagnosis 46.9% of ABI cohort had returned to stable RTW, which increased to 57.4% 1 year after, and 69.7% 10 years after. However, compared to controls fewer had sLMA 1 year (OR: 0.25 [95% CI 0.24–0.27]) and 10 years after diagnosis (OR: 0.35 [95% CI: 0.33–0.38]). Despite significant variations, sLMA was lower compared to the control cohort for all subtypes of ABI and no significant improvements were seen after 2–5 years. Conclusion: Despite relatively fast RTW only a minor proportion of young patients with ABI achieves sLMA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young adulthood represents a developmental period with disproportionately heightened risk of losing a job. Young adult unemployment has been linked to increased mental health problems, at least in the short term. However, their possible long-term impacts, often referred as "scarring effects," have been understudied, possibly underestimating the magnitude of mental health burden that young adult unemployment generates. This longitudinal study examined whether duration of unemployment during young adulthood is associated with later mental health disorders, after accounting for mental and behavioral health problems in childhood. Furthermore, the current study investigated whether childhood neighborhood characteristics affect this association and if so, in what specific functional ways. Data were drawn from a longitudinal study of developmental outcomes in a community sample in Seattle. Data collection began in 1985 when study participants were elementary students and involved yearly assessments in childhood and adolescence (ages 10-16) and then biennial or triennial assessments (ages 18-39; N = 677 at age 39; 47% European American, 26% African American, 22% Asian American, and 5% Native American; 49% female). The current study findings suggest that duration of unemployment across young adulthood increased mental health problems at age 39, regardless of gender. Childhood neighborhood characteristics, particularly their positive aspect, exerted independent impacts on adult mental health problems beyond unemployment experiences across young adulthood. The current findings indicate a needed shift in service profiles for unemployed young adults—a comprehensive approach that not only facilitates reemployment but also addresses mental health needs to help them to cope with job loss. Further, the present study findings suggest that childhood neighborhoods, particularly positive features such as positive neighborhood involvement, may represent concrete and malleable prevention targets that can curb mental health problems early in life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a tight labor market, recruiters are now going to have to deal with these new problems: that a majority of young college-educated women plan to be in the labor force during marriage and after they have children; that most young men will support their wives' career aspirations; and, that although those young men do not plan to let their wives' careers interfere with their own geographic mobility, they expect their employers to help their wives find new jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Homeownership is increasingly understood by policy makers and social scientists as a fundamental asset against poverty risks, especially in times of economic uncertainty. However, in several Western countries, homeownership among younger generations appears to be increasingly difficult to achieve, likely a result of growing employment instability and stringent criteria to access credit. This article uses multinomial logistic models and nationally representative EU-SILC data from six European countries to examine (a) to what extent precarious employment among young couples is linked to being a mortgage holder; (b) whether earned income can compensate for employment instability in being a mortgagee; (c) cross-national differences in the relationship between being a mortgage holder, earnings, and employment insecurity. Our results indicate that the higher the levels of employment insecurity, the lower the chances of being a mortgage holder in all countries. Moreover, we find that at a given level of employment insecurity, households with higher levels of earned income have higher chances of being mortgage holders than households with lower earned income. However, while earned income has a stronger effect in achieving a mortgage among couples who have secure employment in Italy, earnings are more important among couples with lower levels of employment security in France, the UK, Spain and Poland. These results suggest that the relationship between social inequalities and housing is partially mediated by the national context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent studies, many young sexual minorities reported that their minority status has not undermined their career plans, despite the persistent heteronormativity in schools, workplaces, and family. By analyzing in-depth interviews of 34 sexual minority young adults, this article examines how they develop such a perception. Their explanations included five elements—distancing themselves from sexual minorities who conformed to stereotypes about the group, overlooking career sacrifices they had already made, anticipating that their future careers would be sexuality free, and maintaining a general sense of hope and optimism. Some respondents even anticipated positive career consequences, pointing to three advantages of sexual minority status, including a strong career motivation, unique skills and abilities, and favorable treatments from employers. We interpret these results by conceptualizing their career plans as a part of their life narratives and discuss the implications for the sexual minority population and for society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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At the time social entrepreneurship gains momentum, youth organizations try to assume new roles: either by providing youth entrepreneurship trainings or by becoming ‘entrepreneurial’ themselves. However, these processes are not free of contradictions and unsolved tensions. The article highlights some dilemmas of the conventional discourses on social entrepreneurship in the frame of youth organizations. It argues that both youth work and social entrepreneurship stand for civic values and have long-term (and hard to measure) outcomes. Yet, they both create high expectations and share a bias towards what works. The article aims to provoke reflection and, thus, to broaden the theoretical array that shapes practice in youth organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate how young unemployed people make sense of their situation in the face of adversity. Drawing on Cultural Life Course Theory and a new line of research on imagination, this multiple-case study examines the role of imagination for young unemployed people. Based on three in-depth interviews with young academics, we find that the ability to imagine a better future is pivotal for these young people in dealing with unemployment. We integrate the theoretical concept of imagination with Bronfenbrenner’s theory of ecological system. The integrative framework provides a multi-leveled analysis that examines how imaginations work at various levels and how these interact. Imaginations originate from subjective ideas about the future, developed biographically and in dialogue with others as well as societal discourses. We utilize Stern’s concept of experience when investigating how the individual has to relate to what we term the “polyphonic choir of imaginations” consisting of various and sometimes contradictory voices about what it means to be unemployed. Neoliberal policies introduced in the Danish welfare state and neoliberal ideas are singled out as particularly influential. This paper highlights the importance of taking into account temporality in the sense that visions about the future greatly impact how people deal with unemployment here-and-now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Previous research has indicated high rates of intercity movement among homeless young adults (HYAs) for a variety of prosocial (e.g., avoiding domestic violence and seeking new employment opportunities) and antisocial (e.g., following drug supplies and avoiding law enforcement) reasons. The complicated mixture of individual circumstances associated with transience has made it difficult to predict features of transience, such as distance traveled and move frequency. Method: This study describes a method to build an artificial neural network (ANN) that predicts distance traveled and compares the results of thatANN to a generalized linear regression. Results: The ANN more accurately predicts distance traveled than does the linear statistical model and advances the development of approaches to predict complicated human phenomena. Conclusions: Accurately predicting features of transience among HYAs is important in tailoring effective interventions aimed at minimizing travel for negative reasons and making travel for positive reasons safer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transition to adulthood has undoubtedly changed in the last few decades. For youth today, an important marker of adulthood is self-actualization in their professional career, and, consequently, also the achievement of stable financial conditions. Economic conditions of youth are greatly subject to fluctuations in the economy, and the subsequent governmental response. Using the Luxembourg Income Study, this work investigates the trends in income from work of young adults before and after the Great Recession of 2008 in five countries—US, UK, Norway, Germany, and Spain. The findings showed deterioration in economic conditions of young men, but with differences across countries. Young women suffered less from the crisis, and in some countries, their economic situation improved. The general negative trend was especially pronounced for those with high education, which is primarily because they stayed in education longer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK, current approaches to employment activation are primarily concerned with rapid labour market entry, with jobseekers compelled to engage in activities or be sanctioned. The Capability Approach (CA) has been proposed as an alternative framework to measure successful employment activation. It is concerned with what people can do rather than what they actually do, together with their substantive freedom of choice. In applying the CA, attention is drawn to the need for jobseekers to have a voice in the design and implementation of employment activation programmes. Drawing on in-depth qualitative research, this article uses the CA to explore the voice and agency of unemployed young people (aged 16-24) in the development and implementation of employment activation policies. It analyses how far, and in what ways, young people's ideas, experiences and voices are included in policy development and implementation. Reflections and conclusions are made about how the policy discourse which has stressed the importance of centring services on the needs of users is reflected in employment activation policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research background: A common problem of employing the Czech unemployed (especially young people) is that their professional and personal qualities often do not meet the requirements of employers. Despite the increasing level of education, the unemployment of young generation of millennials has been worsening. It seems that they often lack relevant professional skills and social habits, and usually have unreal expectations about their initial job opportunities. We want to explore this problem in more detail. Purpose of the article: The purpose of the article is to present work expectations of today's Czech millennials and post-millennials and discuss their potential employability on the Czech labor market. Methods: The paper is based on the analysis of available scientific literature and the results of the authors' questionnaire survey focused on students of three selected Czech universities and their motivation to study at university and their expectations about the future career. The survey was conducted in spring and autumn 2016. The respondents were full-time and combined bachelor's and master's students of the College of Regional Development in Prague, the Masaryk Institute of Advanced Studies of the Czech Technical University in Prague and the Education Management Centre of the Faculty of Education of the Charles University in Prague. The relevant data were obtained from 484 students. Findings & Value added: The results support the research assumption that young generation of Czech millennials show relatively high expectations related to work and career, which would limit their employability. Many employers are afraid of employing young people, but from the perspective of potential shortage of qualified and motivated people on the Czech labor market they should learn to create appropriate and attractive employment opportunities for young people to ensure effective development of their potential. The article presents common work expectations of today's Czech millennials and provides employers with some advice to manage them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research background: The article presents the problem of youth unemployment from the perspective of employers in Poland exemplified by the research results conducted in Podlaskie province. The unemployment rate of young people in Poland in the age range 15-29, reached 14.2% in 2015. For comparison, at that time the average for the EU was higher by almost two percentage points, and the decline compared to the year 2013 was lower than in Poland. It turns out that higher education in Poland has lost its importance in the process of hiring staff. Employers are increasingly less likely to look at the educational background of candidates, as they focus more on their experience and specific skills. Purpose of the article: The purpose of this article is to present the results of re-search regarding the diagnosis of the situation of young people on the labour market in Poland from the perspective of employers. In particular, there were competency gaps and other reasons for not recruiting young people which have been identified. Methods: Two types of research were carried out with employers from Podlaskie province: quantitative, using CATI/CAWI and qualitative, using the technique of IDI. Quantitative research was carried out on a sample of 346 respondents. A qualitative study was carried out among 16 companies registered in Podlaskie province. Findings & Value added: Among the reasons for not employing young people which were most often mentioned by the entrepreneurs in quantitative research there were financial reasons. During the interviews, employers indicated the reasons for not employing young people such as "lack of appropriate qualifications," "specific skills" or simply "practical preparation for work." Employers were asked about the competence gaps of young people, and they pointed out that they lack experience, initiative and entrepreneurship, as well as learning skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The PIC model by Gati and Asher describes three career decision making stages: pre-screening, in-depth exploration, and choice of career options. We consider the role that three different forms of support (general career support by parents, emotional/instrumental support, and informational support) may play for young adults in each of these three decision-making stages. The authors further propose that different forms of support may predict career agency and occupational engagement, which are important career decision precedents. In addition, we consider the role of personality traits and perceptions (decision-making window) on these two outcomes. Using an online survey sample (N = 281), we found that general career support was important for career agency and occupational engagement. However, it was the combination of higher general career support with either emotional/instrumental support or informational support that was found to lead to both greater career agency and higher occupational engagement. Personality also played a role: Greater proactivity also led to greater occupational engagement, even when there was little urgency for participants to make decisions (window of decision-making was wide open and not restricted). In practical terms, the findings suggest that the learning required in each of the three PIC processes (pre-screening, in-depth exploration, choice of career options) may benefit when the learner has access to the three support measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the measurement equivalence of the Career Indecision Profile (CIP) in a Chinese sample with both U.S. and South Korean samples. Past measurement invariance research on the CIP in four international samples (Icelandic young adults, Italian adolescents, French-speaking young adults, and South Korean adolescents) has supported a four-factor structure in the U.S. and in the three Western samples but not in the South Korean sample. Rather, a five-factor structure emerged in South Korea. This study sought to identify whether either the four- or five-factor structure would demonstrate suitable fit for a Chinese adolescent sample. Results indicated that the four-factor structure developed in the United States did not replicate in China, but the five-factor structure found in South Korea showed adequate fit. Additional analysis suggested full metric invariance on all five scales and scalar invariance on four of the five scales. These findings extend the past measurement invariance work with the CIP to suggest two potential ways with which to understand career indecision: a four-factor structure in Western cultures and a five-factor model in Eastern cultures. Future research needs are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present study was to extend the external validity of an earlier longitudinal study of school leavers by including participants from a representative sample of secondary schools. Questionnaires were administered annually to a sample of South Australian school leavers over a 10-year period. At Time 1 participants were in the last compulsory year of high school aged around 15 years and at Time 10 they were aged around 25 years. Results confirmed those from an earlier longitudinal study showing that the transition from school to satisfactory employment was associated with significant improvements in psychological well-being, whereas transition from school to unemployment or unsatisfactory employment showed no change in psychological well-being. The current findings extended the external validity of the earlier study because whereas participants in the earlier study were sampled from co-educational metropolitan public high schools, the current study included participants from every kind of high school: single sex as well as co-educational, rural as well as metropolitan, and private as well as public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More years of formal education are usually associated with better opportunities throughout life. Additionally, differences related to the completion of the course of studies are expected not only by years of schooling, but also by the degree. This paper aims to highlights the differences in the employment situation of those with differing educational attainment. The Argentinean population, aged 25 to 44 years is considered in the following segments of interest: those who reached up to the secondary level;; those who began a university major but did not completed it, and finally, those who completed a degree in higher education. Considering Home Surveys, the information available in urban Argentinean conglomerates allows to exhibit differences in indicators regarding job quality and work situation, in the three groups compared. In all aspects considered, those who managed to obtain a degree find themselves, on average, in a better situation than those who started their higher studies education but dropped out. The third segment (those who finished high school but did not start higher education studies) were found, predominantly, in a worse situation than other individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although different studies have investigated career choices as cognitive acts of decision-making, non-cognitive components also play an important role. The study tries to develop an empirically based model of career decision-making process linking cognitive (search for work self-efficacy - SWSE) and non-cognitive (psychological well-being - PWB) components. In particular, the study investigates, among 148 never-employed Italian young adults, to what extent the relationship between SWSE and career indecision in terms of lack of readiness (LoR) can be explained by their common relationship with PWB. Results highlighted that SWSE is negatively associated with LoR when considered in absence of PWB. However, when PWB was included in one comprehensive model, it was positively associated with SWSE and negatively related to LoR. Moreover, the presence of PWB nullified the negative association between SWSE and LoR, meaning that PWB shares a large extent of variance with these variables. Implications are discussed in the light of theoretical expectations and limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines a core service of the German Federal Employment Agency for young people: the vocational counseling interview. The leading research questions are as follows: Which expectations do young people have of the counseling session? Which are the most important topics of the interview? What effects could be found after the counseling session? The study uses a pre-post design and is based on a survey of counselees and counselors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]