Ⅰ. Purpose of the Study
An individual's career has a meaning of social being and is a source of happiness, and a continuing life career through out the whole life. Children have long been brought up with the attitude about the career that their pare...
Ⅰ. Purpose of the Study
An individual's career has a meaning of social being and is a source of happiness, and a continuing life career through out the whole life. Children have long been brought up with the attitude about the career that their parents expected them to have, and these expectations have a significant effect upon children's career choice.
In home environment where parents interact with their children, they exchange direct influence with each other through active interaction different from other static relationships. For this reason, home environment is more important than any other kinds of environment. In particular, parents' rearing attitude, the number of siblings, birth order, peaceful family atmosphere, etc. have significant effects on children's career development. Through interaction with other family members, children recognize their position according to their gender and birth order and find that each family member has a different standing. According to previous researches, as the number of children increases, parents' experience in parenthood accumulates and their belief and value system with regard to their children change and their expectation for children is also renewed. In addition, it is reported that parents obtain the concept and knowledge of children's normal development from their socio-cultural environment and their interaction with their children and, based on the concept and understanding, they set their own standards and behave according to the standards (Sigel, 1980; Macgillicuddy, 1980; Ninio, 1979).
Ⅱ. Method of the Study
The present study purposed to investigate parents' expectation of their children's career according to children's gender and birth order and parents' personal characteristics. For this purpose, we conducted a questionnaire survey with 417 parents who were living in Seoul or Gyeonggi-do and had two children and analyzed 391 questionnaire recovered. Collected data were processed using SPSS 10.0 for Windows and analysis was made through frequency analysis, t-test (independent sample t-test), one-way ANOVA, simple regression analysis, correlation analysis, cross analysis, etc.
Ⅲ. Results
The results of analyzing the data are as follows.
First, to examine the effects of gender and birth order on parents' expectation of their children's career, we analyzed parents' expectation, dividing it into five factors - success-orientation, the maintenance of family power, family support, vicarious satisfaction and children's happiness - and classified the types of parents' expectation of their children's career into over-expectation type, indifference type and under-expectation type.
Second, with regard to difference in parents' expectation of their children's career according to children's gender, parents' expectation for the first children was significantly different in success-orientation, the maintenance of family power and family support and their highest expectation lay in children's happiness. Second, parents' expectation for the second children was significantly different in family support and children's happiness. The level of parents' expectation of children's career was similar between the first children and the second ones and was higher for sons than for daughters.
Third, in the result of analyzing difference in parents' expectation of children's career according birth order, the expectation was higher for the first children than the second ones regardless of other variables.
Fourth, in the results of analyzing difference in parents' expectation of children's career according to parents' personal characteristics, significant differences were observed in the maintenance of family power, family support and vicarious satisfaction according to parents' state and fathers' expectation was higher than mothers'. However, no significant difference was observed according to parents' age, education and occupation.
Fifth, in the results of analyzing difference in career expectation type according to children's gender, it was analyzed that indifference type and under-expectation type were significantly different according to the first children's gender and that only over-expectation type was significantly different according to the second children's gender.
Sixth, according to the result of analyzing differences in parents' expectation of their children's career according to children's birth order, significant differences were observed only in under-expectation type for both the first and second children.
Seventh, among parents' personal characteristics, parents' occupation had the most significant effect on their career expectation type and parents' state and education had an effect of similar level. On the other hand, parents' age had the least significant effect.
Eighth, according to the result of analyzing the correlation between parents' personal characteristics and their expectation of their children's career, parents' state was in a negative (-) correlation with the maintenance of family power, family support and vicarious satisfaction, parents' age in a positive (+) correlation with vicarious satisfaction, parents' occupation in a negative (-) correlation with family support, and parents' education in a positive (+) correlation with the maintenance of family power.
According to the results of analysis presented above, parents' expectation of their children's career was different according to children's gender but not according to their birth order, and it was analyzed that parents' occupation had the most significant effect on their vocational expectation type. In addition, the results of this study suggests that researches on parents' expectation of their children's career according to children's gender and birth order, which have been limited to early childhood education, psychology and education, need to be extended to the career studies through more in-depth and scientific approach. Furthermore, this study is meaningful in that the area covered by this research should be studied and analyzed more intensively in the current situation of increasing employment rate of young people.