Young people often dream of their ideal job, but over the years, reality catches up with them: the job market is saturated in these sectors.
- In the United States, many young people dream of an artistic career, while only 2% of Americans work in this sector.
- There are differences between the ambitions of girls and boys, although everyone changes their minds a lot during adolescence.
- The researchers believe that it is important to confront young people with the reality of the job market in the sector they want.
The choice of orientation is often difficult for young people, whether they are in college, high school or at the end of training. Facing them, they have many possibilities: some choose to pursue their dream job, others lean towards reason. Researchers at the University of Houston believe that it would be better to follow the path of this second category. In Journal of Career Assessmentthey explain that there are strong disparities between the ideal job for young people and the reality of the job market.
Changes with age
They reached this conclusion by interviewing more than 3,300 teenagers, aged 13 to 18, about their career choices. “Nearly 50% of teenagers wanted to pursue a career in the arts or become an investigator or researcher, which together represent only 8% of the current job market in the United States“, explains Kevin Hoff, assistant professor of psychology, and author of this research. The teenagers interviewed dreamed of a job with a reduced risk of automation. nurse. Boys, aged 13 to 15, had a large number, 22 to 32 percent, who dreamed of becoming a professional athlete.”Boys and girls showed the same pattern of increasing variability in their aspirations with age, implying more diverse career goals., he points out. Thus, among the young boys who wanted to become athletes, a good part of them had changed their minds at 18, and were destined for a more “accessible“.
Better inform young people about the labor market
For the authors of this study, it is essential to better inform young people about the possibilities available to them. “Young girls often want to become a teacher because they see this job every day“, details the researcher. “It’s important to show them that other professions exist, in particular lesser-known careers, with increasingly large numbers of hires.“He cites the example of the STEM field, which designates science, technology, engineering and mathematics. very low hiring rates.”Teenagers who dream of becoming a doctor may have a great job, doing something else in the medical field, and it will be positive, he continues. The negative aspect would be that they end up having unattainable career dreams, doing studies for which they have no interest or insufficient abilities.“If these conclusions may seem pessimistic, Kevin Hoff denies being against ambition, on the other hand, he believes that you must always have a backup plan in case the dream turns out to be unattainable.
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