Personal Factors Of Coordination Of Profssional And Family Career In Youth

Abstract

The study is aimed to explore personality factors in the coordination of family and professional careers by young people. The urgency of the problem is due to the contradiction between the high social prestige of personal professional self-realization and the objectively low social significance of parenthood. The Technique of incomplete sentences; World Assumptions Scale (in modification M. Padun and A.Kotelnikova); technique of life-meaning orientations (D.A. Leontiev) were used. The study involved 211 girls aged 19 to 21 years old. Four strategies for coordinating professional and family careers were identified: a family career priority strategy (30.3%); a strategy of harmonious combination of professional and family career (45%); the strategy of conformity to social expectations to the traditional gender role (11.4%); the strategy professional career priority when rejecting a family career (13.3%). Basic assumptions in a group with a family career priority strategy are characterized by the highest ratings of the world as fair, confidence in a person’s ability to control what is happening to him; faith in good luck and positive self. In the group with the strategy of harmonious combination of professional and family careers in comparison with the group with the strategy of the priority of professional career, higher scores for the same scales were found. The highest meaningfulness of life, including the perception of one’s life as interesting and meaningful, satisfaction with self-realization and confidence in the ability to control one’s life, was found for a group with a family career priority strategy.

Keywords: Adulthoodbasic beliefscoordination of professional and family careersmeaningfulness of life

Introduction

In the modern information society, the specifics of the social situation of development - the rapid growth of scientific knowledge and technology, the high rate of change associated with the introduction of innovations in all spheres of production and social life, informatization, robotics, automation, put forward new requirements for the professional development of the individual. These are the requirements for continuous professional growth and improvement, a willingness to uncertainty and the ability to act in the face of rapid social and economic changes, an ever-widening gap between education and the profession, which makes “retraining” necessary, willingness to master new professions, high variability of professional development, reflected in a variety of types of professional careers. The high level of requirements necessarily increases the time for vocational training and adaptation and urgently requires the individual to be able to plan his professional development and to build his professional career effectively and consciously. At the same time, the creation of a family, preparation for parenthood and the mastering the parental position become an urgent task of development in youth. The relevance of the research problem is due to the contradiction between the high social prestige of professional self-realization of an individual and the objectively low social significance of parenthood and the difficulties in realizing the maternal and paternal role in raising a child. In modern society with high uncertainty the period of youth is considered as the period of mastering the profession and the start of a successful professional career. To do this, the young man must foresee the tasks of professional growth and development in his life plans. The flip side of the coin is a decrease in the birth rate, an increase in “delayed” parenthood, the prevalence of disharmonious types of family education, an increase in social orphanhood, deviant motherhood and fatherhood. An increase in the number of childless families in which the status of “family without children” (the prevalence of the “child-free” movement) is a conscious choice of spouses or a delayed decision on the birth of children, due to the tasks of completing vocational education, pursuing a career, difficult financial and economic situation of the family or housing problems, often develops into a final decision to live without children, "for their own sake", which later leads to the realization of insufficient self-realization and a deep personal crisis. An increase in the number of childless families in which the status of “family without children” (the prevalence of the “child-free” movement) is a conscious choice of spouses or a delayed decision on the birth of children, due to the tasks of completing vocational education, pursuing a career, difficult financial and economic situation of the family or housing problems, often develops into a final decision to live without children, "for their own sake", which later leads to the realization of insufficient self-realization and a deep personal crisis. Parenthood is increasingly becoming "late" due to the recognition by a person of the priority of career development or a stable hedonistic orientation. The disharmony of the family education system brings forth the various forms of the form of deviant parenthood - abuse and rejection, neglect, hypoprotection, authoritarian-directive parenthood, and inconsistent education. In response to the challenges of modern society - the demographic challenge, the need for continuous professional self-improvement, the risks of disruption of intergenerational communication, including between parents and children, it is necessary to study the psychological conditions that determine the possibility of a harmonious combination of professional and family careers by young people. The study of personality factors that determine the effective coordination of professional careers and family careers by young people who determine their life plans in the family and professional spheres is of particular relevance.

Problem Statement

The period of adulthood is sensitive for building life plans in the long term, including strategies and plans for professional and family careers. The study of life plans in the time perspective was done in the works of L.I. Bozhovich, A.M. Prikhozhan, N.N. Tolstykh, refering to adolescence, while the period of youth as an age of real self-determination in the professional and family sphere is not sufficiently studied. The need to establish priorities in the implementation of professional and family careers and coordinate goals and development vectors in each of these areas is the age specificity of this period. The task of a professional career at this age is to determine the direction of professional activity on the basis of higher education. The need to create a family, according to Erikson, is one of the reasons for the psychosocial crisis that characterizes the period of early maturity or youth (20-25 years) (as cited in Erikson & Erikson, 1998). Havighurst (1972), in his description of the human life cycle, indicates that the choice of a spouse, the beginning of family life, and the development of the ability to live with a marriage partner are the main developmental tasks in early youth and in emerging adulthood. The psychological criterion for the onset of early adulthood is such a major event in the life of a “normal person” as the creation of one’s own family and parenthood (Abramova, 1997). The attitude of modern youth to family values has changed significantly. In the system of value orientations, there is a low prestige of motherhood and fatherhood, an increasingly frequent choice by spouses of a model of a childless family (Akutina, 2015). An increase in the importance of values of personal autonomy, a high professional status and career, professional self-realization, increased craving for welfare and a high level of consumption, which impedes the choice of a parental role by a young man was revealed (Gricaj, 2011). The desire for equality of gender roles, the accessibility of higher education and career advancement opportunities for both sexes leads to the fact that the value of parenthood for girls begins to compete with the value of professional and life success (Polivanova, 2015). Confronting self-realization in a career, success, the desire for hedonism, etc. the value of parenthood is declining. Devatih (2006) writes that parenthood is presented to boys and girls as a contradiction between the possibilities of self-realization in this activity and the need for sacrifice and self-denial. The research results indicate the rejection of the role of the parent due to unwillingness to limit their personal freedom, abandon the existing lifestyle, put in jeopardy a successful career (Peterson & Engwall, 2013).

Research Questions

Purpose of the Study

The goal: the study of personality factors in the coordination of family and professional careers by young people during adulthood tasks; identification of a strategy for the coordination of family and professional careers in the life plans of young people; revealing the connection of basic beliefs that determine the personal image of the world and oneself in the world in building a strategy for coordinating professional and family careers; the study of the connection of meaningfulness of life and strategies for coordinating professional and family careers.

Research Methods

Methods and techniques were used in the study: Technique “Incomplete sentences”, World Assumptions Scale, based on the basic assumptions methodology (Janoff-Bulman, 1989) in modification (Padun & Kotelnikova, 2008) , Test of meaning-life orientations. The study involved 211 girls aged 19 to 21 years old, students of 3-5 courses.

Findings

Conclusion

The results of the study of the options for coordinating family and professional careers in girls at the stage of emerging adulthood became the basis for identifying 4 types of strategies. The strategy of a harmonious combination of family and professional careers had the highest frequency. This confirms the assertion that modern girls strive for the most complete self-realization in both areas - both in the professional and in the field of family and parenthood. Family career priority strategy has become the second most frequent. Less often, young women prefer a priority strategy for a professional career and a strategy of conformity to social expectations, which manifests itself in an orientation toward the implementation of the traditional gender role of mother and hostess at home. We suggested that the system of basic assumptions that determine a person’s worldview will form the basis of life plans and, accordingly, will differ among respondents accordingly to strategies. Our results allow us to conclude that the implicit picture of the world in girls with a family career priority strategy is characterized by the highest confidence in perceiving the world as fair, in which: everyone receives what he deserves and deserves what he receives; the belief that a person can control what is happening to him; confidence in luck and positive self and self-esteem as a conviction of the value and significance of one’s self. A comparative analysis of the worldview of a group of girls with a strategy of harmonious combining professional and family careers in comparison with a group with a professional career priority strategy reveals that the first group also has higher rates of basic beliefs in the justice of the world, the ability to control one’s life and faith in good luck, personal conviction that she deserves love, respect and recognition. The lowest indicators of basic beliefs were found in a group of girls implementing a strategy for the priority of a professional career and rejection of a family one. The high meaningfulness of life, including the perception of one’s life as being interesting and filled with meaning, satisfaction with self-realization and confidence in the ability to control one’s life, was revealed in a group that preferred a family career priority strategy. At the same time, the general meaningfulness of life is significantly higher among the respondents of the group with the priority of a family career. The results obtained indicate that a positive picture of the world, an emotional richness of life, a positive self-concept, and a sense of control and management of life form the basis of a family career preference. There are two points to explain this fact. 1. The developmental task at this age stage is to build love relationships and psychological intimacy and create a family. The solution to this developmental task is based on the belief that the world and myself are harmonious and fair. 2. Respondents are at the start of their professional career; therefore, a professional career is a distant time perspective for them, compared to building close interpersonal relationships. Thus, strategies for the priority of family careers and the harmonious combination of professional and family careers were identified in young women with a high level of psychological well-being. This confirms the importance of the sphere of family life among modern girls and their orientation towards the implementation of a family career. The prospect of further research is the study of gender differences in the choice of a strategy for harmonizing professional and family careers.

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by Russian Foundation for Basic Research under the project 20-013-00819.

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