engleski

The congruence between students' vocational interests and their parents' occupations: Sex-role stereotyping in the world of work

The aim of this study was to compare vocational interests of high school students and present occupations of their parents. The congruence between students' vocational interests and their parents' occupations was investigated according to their gender. We tried to find whether students' occupational choice is more correspondent with same-sex parents' occupations than with other-sex parents' occupations, and whether the same pattern could be seen in male and female student sample. Croatian version of Holland's SDS was administered to a large sample of high school students (approximately 18-19 years old), with additional questions about their mothers' and fathers' occupations. Vocational interests and parents&#8217 ; occupations were defined as RIASEC three-letter codes. Similarity between students' vocational interests and parents' occupations was calculated by Iachan index. Results generally show poor matches between students' vocational interests and their parents' occupations. Only reasonably close matches are obtained between male students&#8217 ; vocational interest and their fathers&#8217 ; occupations. The discrepancy between children&#8217 ; s occupational preference and their parents' present occupation could be due to a constant change in the world of work and emerging modern, challenging occupations. Gender occupational stereotypes can be seen from higher RIASEC congruencies for same sex children-parent relation: female students' interests match closer to their mothers' occupations, while male students' interests match closer to their fathers' occupations. These findings support well-known sex-role stereotyping in occupational preferences, which are in correspondence with gender differences in the world of work.

Holland; values; interests; sex-role

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