Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of parenting style on their children
career choice in Oye Local Government Area of Ekiti State. The sample consisted of two
hundred respondents who were conveniently selected from secondary schools within Oye local
government in Ekiti State. The instrument used was a questionnaire which was administered to
the respondents. Four (4) null hypotheses were formulated and tested. Multinomial logistic
regression analysis was used due to the levels of the independent variable having more than two
levels, testing the influence of parenting style one children’s career choice. The findings of the
study showed that only authoritarian style parenting significantly predicted choosing a career in
the social sciences than being an artisan with an odd ratio 1.15. In addition, one (1) out of the
three (3) null hypotheses tested was accepted because there were no significant differences in the
variables compared. Hypotheses on
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Everyone wants to be identified with a career regardless of its worth’s or value, whereas
individuals are optimistic about their career choice. The oxford advanced learners dictionary of
current English defines career as ”a job or profession especially one with opportunities for
progress or promotion” A profession is therefore ” is a dignified occupation based on intellectual
training and desirable mental exercise the purpose of which is to render service’’. Henry-bell
(2006) Stress that career is the totality of experience through which one learns about and
prepares to engage in work as a part of his way of living. Chen (2003) objectivist believe that
occupational matches can be measured and predicted mainly through scientific assessment and
will logically state what type of career choice best fits that person. This type of thinking was
dominated in the early 20th century-Frank Person the designated founder of the vocational
guidance movement. Speete (2002) Observe ” career is an ongoing process that occurs over the
life-span and includes homes school and communities”.
Eduwen (2000) opined” it is realistic that students desire help in order to make satisfying
choice of the occupation. Career choice has become a complex science with the advent of
information technology, the emergence of post industrial revolution and job competition. It was a
common practice in the old days to find feudalism converting it into a family affair where the
son of a blacksmith was destined to become a blacksmith and a feudal was born a leader.
Industrialization and post industrialization has made it possible for a common person to be richer
as long as she or he has due skills and knowledge (Wattles, 2009). Today, one has not only to
make due career planning but also exhaustive career research before making a career choice so
as to adjust with the evolving socio-economic conditions (Wattles, 2009). Most of students who
are secondary schools do not have accurate information about occupational opportunities to help
them make appropriate career choice. According to Kerka (2000), career choice is influenced by
multiple factors including personality, interests, self-concept, cultural identity, globalization,
socialization, role model, social support and available resources such as information and
financial. Bandura et al (2001) state that each individual undertaking the process is influenced by
several factors including the context in which they live in, their personal aptitudes, social
contacts and educational attainment. According to Hewitt (2010), factors influencing career
choice can either be intrinsic or extrinsic or both. Hewitt further states that most people are
influenced by careers that their parents favor, others follow the careers that their educational
choices have opened for them, some
Career selection is one of many important choices students will make in determining
future plans. This decision will impact them throughout their lives. The essence of who the
student is will revolve around what the student wants to do with their life-long work. Everyone
should have an honest occupation” (Rosenstock & Steinberg, cited in O’Brien, 1996, p. 3). Every
student carries the unique history of their past and this determines how they view the world. That
history created, in part by the student’s environment, personality, and opportunity, will determine
how students make career choices. It then follows that how the student perceives their
environment, personality, and opportunity also will determine the career choices students make.
Factors in Career Choice, the first factor in career choice, environment, may influence the
career students choose. For example, students who have lived on an island may choose a career
dealing with the water, or they may choose to leave the island behind, never to have anything to
do with water again. Maybe someone in the student’s life has made a significant impact or
impression, leading to a definite career choice.
Parents’ educational background and parenting style may influence student views on
whether or not to continue their education. Someone they saw on television may have influenced
the student, or parents may have demanded that they Career Choice Factors 12 assume a family
business. First, these are various environmental factors that would lead a student to a chosen
career. How students have seen themselves in a role in which personality is a determining factor
may influence a chosen career. Some careers demand that you have the personality to match the
qualities of the occupation. For example, sales people have to be outgoing. Second, through the
parenting style it creates different personalities Splaver (1977) said “personality” plays an
important role in the choosing of the right career. A student’s personality must be a selfmotivated type, as to investigate career possibilities from early on in their lives, and not the
procrastinating type that waits until they are compelled to decide. Students must take seriously
the role grades play in limiting opportunities in the future. Splaver went on to say, “It is
important for you to have a good understanding of yourself, your personality, if you are to make
intelligent career plans” (Splaver, 1977, p.12).
Opportunity is the third factor that has shaped career choices for students. Opportunity
may influence how students have perceived their future in terms of the reasonable probability of
a future in particular career fields. The issue of poverty has played an important determining role
in the opportunities available to all. The income level of high school families may determine
what career a student chooses during a specific time in the student’s life; choices that will
determine a large part of that student’s future. Some students will have to budget education
according to their personal income. Thout (1969) addressed those in desperate need, “Where
necessary, these persons [Individuals described as living under the poverty level] must be
assisted through special training programs to overcome educational and social handicaps so that
minimum job standards can be met” (p. 1). Students in many cases will need the proper
mentoring Career Choice Factors 13 opportunities to succeed. These support groups will be
another opportunity that if properly implemented, can help a student in the career choice process.
The most common factor is parenting style. The family is a place in which children learn
to interpret reality (Way and Rossmann 1996b). Parents serve as significant interpreters for
children of information about the world and children’s abilities (Hall, Kelly, Hansen, and
Gutwein 1996). Researchers have studied the influence of parents and the family on children’s
career choice and development. Much of this research has demonstrated links between career
development and such factors as socioeconomic status, parents’ educational and occupational
attainment, and cultural background. This Digest highlights a different body of research that
considers the effects of family relationships. This research is based on attachment theory, which
suggests that close relationships provide experiences of security that promote exploration and
risk taking (Ketterson and Blustein 1997), and social learning theory, which views “early
experiences as a basis for developing career self-efficacy and interests as well as career goals and
choices throughout life” (Altman 1997, p. 241). The Digest looks at the ways in which parenting
styles, family functioning, and parent-child interaction influence career development.
Roe, an early theorist, proposed that early childhood experiences play an indirect role in
shaping later career behavior (Brown, Lum, and Voyle 1997). She suggested that parent-child
relationships influence personality orientations and the development of psychological needs;
vocational interests and choices are some of the ways in which individuals try to satisfy those
needs (ibid.). Although Osipow (1997) and others point out the difficulty of demonstrating links
between parenting styles and vocational choices, some research evidence is emerging.
Parenting styles are broad patterns of child rearing practices, values, and behaviors. Four types of
parenting styles are:
i. Authoritative (both demanding and responsive),
ii. Authoritarian (highly demanding and directive but not responsive),
iii. Indulgent or Permissive (more responsive than demanding), and
iv . Uninvolved (low in responsiveness and demandingness) (Darling 1999).
The authoritative style balances clear, high expectations with emotional support and
recognition of children’s autonomy. Studies have associated this style with self-confidence,
persistence, social competence, academic success, and psychosocial development (Bloir 1997;
Strage and Brandt 1999). Authoritative parents provide a warm family climate, set standards, and
promote independence, which result in more active career exploration on the part of children
(Kracke 1997). Although authoritarian parenting is associated with school success, pressures to
conform and fulfill parents’ expectations regarding education and careers can cause a poor fit
between the individual and the chosen career, as well as estranged family relationships and poor
mental health (Way and Rossmann 1996a). Families with uninvolved (or inactive) parents “seem
unable to function well either because they cannot set guidelines, or because they do not pursue
interests that involve places and persons outside the family” (ibid., p. 3). This makes it more
difficult for children to develop self-knowledge and differentiate their own career goals from
their parents’ goals.
Overall family functioning, a broader concept that encompasses parenting style, includes
such factors as parental support and guidance, positive or negative environmental influences, and
family members’ interaction styles (Altman 1997). Family functioning has a greater influence on
career development than either family structure (size, birth order, number of parents) or parents’
educational and occupational status (Fisher and Griggs 1994; Trusty, Watts, and Erdman
1997). Parental support and guidance can include specific career or educational suggestions as
well as experiences that indirectly support career development, such as family vacations,
provision of resources such as books, and modeling of paid and nonpaid work roles (Altman
1997). The absence of support, guidance, and encouragement can lead to “floundering,” the
inability to develop and pursue a specific career focus. Lack of support can also take the form of
conflict, when a parent pressures a child toward a particular career and may withdraw financial
and emotional support for a career path not of the parent’s choosing (ibid.). Family functioning
also includes the response to circumstances such as poverty, alcoholism, marital instability, and
illness or death of family members. Sometimes an individual may respond to a stressful or
negative family environment by making hasty, unreflective career choices in an attempt to
escape or survive (ibid.). On the other hand, critical life events can spur a transformative learning
experience that may shape a career and life direction (Fisher and Griggs 1994).
Interactions between parents and children and among siblings are a powerful influence.
Interactions can include positive behaviors such as showing support and interest and
communicating openly, or negative behaviors such as pushing and controlling (Way and
Rossmann 1996a). By sharing workplace stories, expressing concern for children’s future, and
modeling work behaviors, parents serve as a context for interpreting the realities of work (ibid.).
Parent-child connectedness facilitates risk taking and exploration, which are needed for identity
formation in general as well as for the formation of vocational identity (Altman 1997; Blustein
1997). Siblings can be a source of challenge and competition and a basis for comparison of
abilities, thus providing a context for identity formation (Altman 1997). Because career
development is a lifelong process, “family of origin continues to have an influence through the
life span” (ibid., p. 242). Understanding early family experiences and relationships can help
adults identify barriers to their career progress.
Whiston (2004) suggested to students, perceived parental expectations had a stronger
influence than socio-economic status, but the influence was indirect through the variables of
student’s occupational expectation, which in turn affected career choice. The findings of Endicott
(1984) indicate that student perception of parental expectations is an important factor in career
choice as a parental influence. Generally, this inquiry lends empirical support to the assertion
that student perception of parental expectations may contribute significantly to career choice.
Parenting style exerts a lot of influence on the educational attainment of the adolescent especially
the socio-economic status of parents. The possibility of re- entry into school is enhanced if the
adolescent girl comes from the high socio-economic status family among girl child drop out
group (Alika & Egbochuku, 2009). Academic performance is positively correlated with parents
who enforce rules at home (Ryan, 2005). Family influences the behavior or character of a child
(Trost & Levin, 2000). Parents play a significant role in laying the foundation of their children’s
career (Tella, 2003).
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
This research is based on the influence of parenting style on the choice of career among
secondary school students in Oye Local Government Area of Ekiti State. The parents may desire
what they think is good or best for their ward. This may affect the child positively if the child can
cope with it but negatively when such a child has other things in mind, which he/she wishes to
do. The result of this is that the child may not concentrate on the parents needs and so may not
adjust positively towards the career. This sometimes leads to student’s waywardness, secrete cult
involvement, armed robbery and so on. The child may not cope with the parents continual force
against his/her will. Parents often known as the most important being who play a significant role
on their child’s development morally, educationally and psychologically.
The world is speedily making such drastic demand upon the coming workers every
truthful man and woman, who teaches and reflecting parents is planning way to fit the students
for the life and needs of this new century. This statement which is still relevant today was written
by Mejer Bloomfield in his book ‘finding ones place in life in (2007) since the early 2000 career
development or vocational guidance at it was then known has increasingly gained more and more
attention and respect in essence career counseling is a specialty within the profession of
counseling one that fosters vocationally development and work adjustment of individual abilities
interest and goals with the work roles structured by the community and occupation organized by
companies and assist a developing and deciding individual to make suitable and viable choice
why examine the factors affecting career choice on senior secondary school students, in the past
and even now for many. It was assumed that an individual going through late adolescence would
be developing their independence and slowly eliminating his or her family’s constraints as he or
she formed his or her own identity into the larger world, in effect the person would make career
decision based on his or her own interest and occupational goals with limited influence from
others. In fact even when young adult move away from home, their family will likely still have a
strong influence upon them on two significant life events marriage and their career. Parents often
time disregard the ability of their children and choose career they feel is suitable.
The parenting style, thus creates different types of personalities for children for example,
children whose parents adopts authoritative parenting style are more liable of personality traits
such as assertiveness, self-control, self-regulation and self-dependence. The research question
which the study attempt to verify are as follows
RQ1. Will authoritarian parenting style have significant relationship with student’s career
choice?
RQ2. Will authoritative parenting style have significant relationship with student career choice?
RQ3. Will permissive parenting style have significant relationships with student’s career choice?
RQ4. Which parenting style authoritarian, authoritative, permissive is most significant in
student’s career choice.
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
Therefore, the present study deems it imperative to investigate the extent to which
parenting style will play an important part in career decision making among students. Generally,
this inquiry lends empirical support to the assertion that student perception of parental
expectations may contribute significantly to career choice. It will unveil possible ways, trying to
find out to what extent, the influence of the parent will play on the student’s choice of career, and
whether the influence will always aid the students positively or negatively.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
The importance of this research work is to find to what extent the influences of the
parenting style will affect the student’s choice of career.
? It will enable the researcher give recommendations to the parents about their
children’s response to their career.
? It will enable the researcher make concrete recommendations to the government
about the choice of career among students especially now that the rate of
unemployment is high.
? It will enable the researcher to make recommendation to school administrators.
? The findings will also enable the researcher made recommendations for further
research on the issue of career prospects.