Young people’s career aspirations are A to B, but should be A to Z

This was published 8 months ago

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How many occupations and specialisations can you think of? Can you think of more than the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and Stats (New Zealand) have identified recently? How many different jobs would you like to do (not at the same time!)?

Presumably, you were readily able to bring to mind some of the occupations that appear at the beginning of the alphabet such as abalone sheller or abseiling instructor. Perhaps you like to do things at the end of the alphabet such as yarn comber, yoghurt maker or zoologist.

You could be an abalone diver ... or a zoologist.

My bet is that most of us, including me, would have struggled to name all of those jobs, let alone the more than 3000 others that feature between abalone diver and zoology technical officer. Those bookend occupations might give the impression that the only gigs available around these parts are to do with animals. Not so! Although almost in the middle lurks lamb marker, but that job is sandwiched between lagger and lamination machine operator. LAN administrator, landscape Gardener, Lapidary and Latex Foam Maker are also not far away.

Anyone who had all of those on their list is almost certainly lying or works as a labour market analyst. And this is a problem.

A 2018 study reported by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Program for International Student Assessment (OECD PISA) found that 50 per cent of 15-year-olds aspire to only 10 occupations. There are no prizes for guessing the top five of the most popular choices. They were, in order, doctors, teachers, business managers, engineers and lawyers.

Australian research reinforces this concentration of aspiration among the young.

A Monash University discussion paper entitled Young women choosing careers: who decides? reported that 65 per cent of females in years 10, 11 and 12 aspire to jobs listed in the OECD top 10 most popular. In our own research conducted by Become Education with students participating in our career exploration programs in primary and high schools, we found career concentration figures for particular schools to be even higher. About 50 per cent of students aspire to five occupations.

Now clearly, there are only so many latex foam makers that society requires, and not everything in the world needs laminating, but equally not everything needs litigating with lawyers. We may benefit from recruiting more doctors, but think of the hospital overcrowding if 50 per cent of the 4.8 million under 18s in Australia all became doctors.

Clearly this does not happen, not least because entry into certain occupations is controlled by supply factors, and barriers to entry such as ATAR scores, course fees and the number of places offered.

It also points to a significant challenge for career education in this country. There is still a widespread assumption that part of the purpose of career education is to "narrow down" a student's thinking to a manageable and realistic set of alternatives. Worse, are those that peddle ideas about finding the ideal or perfectly matching career.

Aside from the fact such thinking is both nonsense and perfectionism, it contributes to myopic career aspirations that are inconsistent with reality and not in the best interests of young people or society as a whole.

What we need is to broaden young people's minds to see the wide range of ways in which they can contribute their talents to society, not encourage them to conform to a fantasy.

Jim Bright, FAPS is Professor of Career Education and Development at ACU and Director of Research and Impact at Become Education. Email to [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @DrJimBright