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LifespanDevOnlineOccupationalandLifestyleIssuesinYoungandMiddleAdulthoodFall2022.ppt
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Work and Leisure: Occupational and Lifestyle Issues in Young and Middle Adulthood
(Chapter 12)
Reminders: Check and re-check the directions for your lesson and assignments to be sure that you are meeting requirements and completing assignments on time! 

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Occupational Selection & Development

  • How do people view work? How do occupational priorities vary with age?
  • How do people choose their occupations?
  • What factors influence occupational development?
  • What is the relation between job satisfaction and age?

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The Meaning of Work

  • Most people work to make a living but also find meaning in their work
  • Research has found that people have four common ways in which personal fulfillment is derived from work
  • Developing and becoming self
  • Union with others
  • Expressing self
  • Serving others

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Holland’s Theory of Occupational Choice

  • People pursue careers that are a good fit between their abilities and interests
  • Six personality types that combine these factors: investigative, social, realistic, artistic, conventional, and enterprising
  • Holland’s theory does not tell us much about the differences among ethnic groups or the match with personality type and occupational choices in adulthood

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Occupational Development

  • How we advance within chosen occupations depends on many factors including
  • Expectations
  • Support from coworkers
  • Priorities
  • Job satisfaction

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Super’s Theory

  • People progress along a continuum of vocational maturity through five stages
  • Implementation stage
  • Establishment stage
  • Maintenance stage
  • Deceleration stage
  • Retirement stage
  • Occupational aspirations at age 16 in the U.K. predicted occupational attainments at 33
  • In the U.S., people change occupations several times during adulthood

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Occupational Expectations

  • Research by Levinson has shown that there are several major life tasks for adults
  • Developing a dream is one of these tasks
  • Changing interests and failure can be cause for changing the dream
  • Leaving school and learning about the real world is often a time of reality shock for young adults

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The Role of Mentors and Coaches

  • More experienced workers often communicate the most critical kinds of information rather than formal training
  • Mentors help young workers avoid trouble and explain the unwritten rules of the job
  • Mentors often guide young workers and help to ensure that they are noticed and get credit from supervisors

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Job Satisfaction

  • Job satisfaction tends to increase with age
  • Probably because with advancing age, workers tend to select and stay with jobs that satisfy them and move on from work that is less satisfying
  • Middle-aged workers tend to be more satisfied with the intrinsic rewards of work than they are with extrinsic rewards such as pay

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Job Satisfaction
(Cont)

  • As workers get older, work may not be as much of a focus of their lives
  • People change how they go about their work and jobs, resulting in a cyclical pattern to job satisfaction

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Caption: Whether someone actually leaves a job (turnover) is directly influenced by thoughts about withdrawing from one’s company (withdrawal cognitions) and by comparing alternative jobs (compared alternatives) which in turn are influenced by several other variables.

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Caption: Super’s Occupational Stages During Adulthood

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Alienation and Burnout

  • Alienation - the feeling that what a worker is doing is meaningless, no relationship between what they do and the end product
  • The personality trait of cynicism is the factor most related to alienation
  • To reduce alienation, stay involved in the decision-making, develop flexible work schedules, and provide employee development

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Alienation and Burnout
(Cont)

  • Burnout – a depletion of a person’s energy and motivation
  • Results from stress, emotional exhaustion, and diminished personal accomplishment
  • Can be avoided by stress-reduction techniques, lowering people’s expectations of themselves, and enhancing communication with the organization

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Gender, Ethnicity, and Discrimination Issues

  • How do women’s and men’s occupational expectations differ? How are people viewed when they enter occupations that are not traditional for their gender?
  • What factors are related to women’s occupational development?
  • What factors affect ethnic minority workers’ occupational experiences and occupational development?
  • What types of bias and discrimination hinder the occupational development of women and ethnic minority workers?

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Gender Differences in Occupational Selection

  • Traditionally, boys have been trained to think about what work they will do and taught that men are known by the work that they do
  • Boys are taught that a part of masculinity is occupational achievement, and through games, that it is important to be a good follower and team player

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Gender Differences in Occupational Selection
(Cont)

  • Traditionally, girls have not been taught to value these factors as much as those of being supportive, quiet, and accommodating
  • The increase in the participation of women’s athletic programs has been helpful in changing this difference

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Traditional & Nontraditional Occupations

  • Women tend to select nontraditional occupations because of personal feelings, experiences, and expectations about the occupation
  • Women who have both brothers and sisters and attended single-sex high schools are most likely to choose nontraditional occupations

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Traditional & Nontraditional Occupations
(Cont)

  • Women who rate high on tests of traditional measures of femininity choose more traditional occupations but may feel unchallenged
  • Women in nontraditional occupations are still often viewed negatively by peers of either sex

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Traditional & Nontraditional Occupations
(Cont)

  • People often make assumptions about working conditions based on their perception of an occupation as traditionally masculine or feminine
  • People are less likely to recognize sexual harassment of a female when she works in a nontraditional occupation

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Women & Occupational Development

  • Most important issues for women tend to be whether the work environment is supportive, lack of development opportunities, and organizational politics

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Women & Occupational Development (Cont)

  • Women tend to leave their jobs for two reasons
  • Women may prefer to work interdependently with peers. Corporations that do not value this are negatively viewed
  • Women may feel disconnected from colleagues, clients, and coworkers, leaving them feeling alienated

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Ethnicity and Occupational Development

  • While African American and European American women do not differ in their plans to enter nontraditional occupations, African American women are more likely to seek more formal training, becoming overqualified
  • African American and European American men are more likely to have higher vocational identity when they graduate from college versus European American women and Hispanic American men

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Bias and Discrimination

  • Gender Bias and the Glass Ceiling
  • Only 5% of senior managers in the Fortune 500 are women
  • The glass ceiling is a term referring to the promotional level above which women may not go
  • Women are paid, on average, ¾ of what men are paid in the same positions. Larger gaps are observed for Hispanic and African American women

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Caption: The gap between men’s and women’s average weekly wages have been closing slowly since the 1970s.

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Sexual Harassment

  • Reports suggest that as few as 5% of victims of sexual harassment report it
  • Studies have shown that as many as 40% of women have experience sexual harassment in the workplace
  • Research shows that harassment results in negative emotional, mental health, and job-related outcomes

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Age Discrimination

  • Denying a job or promotion to an individual solely based on age is age discrimination
  • Federal law prohibits this practice for workers over the age of 40
  • Retirement incentives and stereotyped beliefs affecting job performance ratings are also common

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Occupational Transitions

  • Why do people change occupations?
  • Is worrying about potential job loss a major source of stress?
  • How does job loss affect the amount of stress experienced?

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Occupational Transitions

  • The reasons people leave their jobs are varied
  • Unhappy with the work
  • Obsolete skills
  • Economic trends
  • Pursuing additional training or education
  • Retraining Workers
  • Career plateauing occurs when there is a lack of opportunity or when a person decides not to seek advancement
  • The retraining of mid-career and older workers emphasizes the need for life-long learning

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Occupational Insecurity

  • Economic conditions in the U.S. have resulted in many people losing jobs
  • Many people experience feelings of insecurity
  • People who worry about their jobs tend to have poorer mental health and negative attitudes about their employer
  • Negative attitudes may result even if the anxiety over the job is not based on fact

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Coping With Unemployment

  • Unemployment often results in declines in physical health and self-esteem
  • Middle-aged men are more susceptible to the negative effects of unemployment
  • Unemployment rates are higher for ethnic minority groups than for European Americans. The stress involved affects all groups similarly

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Coping With Unemployment
(Cont)

  • Recommendations
  • Approach job loss with a healthy sense of urgency
  • Consider next career move and what must be done to achieve it, even if there are no prospects for it at the present
  • Admit and react to change as soon as you realize it is there
  • Be cautious of stop-gap employment
  • Identify a realistic goal and list the steps needed to achieve it

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Work and Family

  • What are the issues faced by people who care for dependents?
  • How do partners view the division of household chores? What is work-family conflict? How does it affect couples’ lives?

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The Dependent Care Dilemma

  • Employed Caregivers
  • Many mothers have to return to work after the birth of a baby
  • Some women struggle with the issue of returning to work, weighing financial need and the need to care for their children
  • Some women feel the need to return to work as a result of attachment to their work

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Employed Caregivers
(Cont)

  • Giving up work means a redefinition of one’s identity
  • 65% of women caring for a parent or partner work at least 35 hours
  • The need to care for a parent or partner along with the lack of availability of affordable help forces many out of the workforce

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Dependent Care and Effects of Workers

  • Women experience significant negative effects of being responsible for dependent care
  • When responsible for the care of a parent, women report more missed meetings and more absences from work. Higher levels of stress results
  • Stress is decreased by having partners who provide support and having a job that allows for control over one’s work schedule

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Dependent Care and Employer Responses

  • Many governments provide government-supported child-care centers for employees
  • Providing child-care support is important, but positive impact is more often seen when supervisors are supportive and benefits that employees consider important are provided
  • Better job security, autonomy, lower productivity demands, supervisor support, and flexible schedules are helpful

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Juggling Multiple Roles

  • Dividing Household Chores
  • Women still spend up to 50% more hours per week than men in family work
  • Unequal division of labor is the greatest source of arguments and unhappiness in two-earner households
  • While men have increased the amount of time spent on household chores, the greatest amount of the increase is on the weekends

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Dividing Household Chores
(Cont)

  • Men are more satisfied with the division of household labor
  • Women are more satisfied when men take on tasks that are traditionally women’s chores
  • African American and Hispanic men spend more time on household chores than European American men
  • Across cultures studied, gender inequality was greatest for women employed full-time

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Caption: Women spend much more time on household chores than men, even after the children have left (empty nest).

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Work-Family Conflict

  • Work and family roles do not necessarily affect each other all of the time
  • Women are not as concerned about the amount of time men spend on household chores as when there are certain “women’s chores” that men will not perform
  • The division of household labor is often the result of people’s experience with their parents’ assignment of chores

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Work-Family Conflict
(Cont)

  • Studies suggest that women often cope successfully with careers and family and the stress involved
  • The number of children, not the ages of the children, was found to be a significant factor in their success
  • Highest level of stress was during the peak parenting years when there were often at least two preschool children in the home

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Work-Family Conflict
(Cont)

  • Dual-earner couples have difficulty finding time for each other
  • The amount of time is not necessarily the most important issue as long as they enjoy the time together and it is spent in shared activities
  • Cross-cultural data suggests that work and parenting-related burnout is more likely to affect women

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Time to Relax: Leisure Activities

  • What activities are leisure activities? How do people choose among them?
  • What changes in leisure activities occur with age?
  • What do people derive from leisure activities?

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Types of Leisure Activities

  • Leisure activities can be classified as
  • Cultural
  • Physical
  • Social
  • Solitary
  • Other ways to distinguish between leisure activities
  • The degree of cognitive, emotional, or physical involvement

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Developmental Changes in Leisure

  • Young adults participate in a greater range of activities
  • Middle-aged adults are more concerned with home- and family-oriented, less physically strenuous activities
  • There is a great deal of stability over developmental ages in leisure activities preferred

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Consequences of Leisure Activities

  • Research shows that:
  • Participation is related to well-being
  • Leisure activities promote mental health
  • Leisure activities lessen the effects of stress and negative life events
  • They strengthen feelings of attachment to one’s partner, family, and friends
  • They may be used to explore interpersonal relationships
  • Leisure results in more marital satisfaction if spent with others rather than only as a couple

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