Q&A: What influences teens' career expectations?
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Adolescents in both the United States and the United Kingdom have become increasingly ambitious about their future careers over the past two decades, according to a new study by researchers at Penn State. The team also found that family socioeconomic background plays a different role depending on the types of occupations students expect to pursue, with relatively small socioeconomic differences among American students aspiring to the highest-status careers.
In a recent study accepted for publication in the American Educational Research Journal, Soo-yong Byun, professor of education, demography and Asian studies at Penn State, explored how family socioeconomic background influences adolescents' occupational expectations in the U.S. and the U.K. The paper is available on the ResearchGate preprint server.
Drawing on nearly two decades of international data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), he and his co-authors examined how those relationships evolved between 2000 and 2018.
In this Q&A, Byun spoke about what the findings reveal, why adolescents' occupational expectations matter and what educators can learn from the research.
Have adolescents' occupational expectations changed over time? How?
We found that adolescents' occupational expectations increased steadily between 2000 and 2018 in both the U.S. and the U.K. More adolescents aspired to high-status occupations such as medicine, law and engineering. While our study was not designed to identify the causes of this trend, it is consistent with broader economic and social changes, including but not limited to the expansion of knowledge-based occupations, rising parental educational attainment and increasingly high expectations for children's educational and career success.
How do occupational expectations compare between teens in the U.S. and U.K.?
We found that American adolescents reported higher occupational expectations than their British counterparts between 2000 and 2015. However, by 2018, this difference had largely disappeared because occupational expectations increased more rapidly among British adolescents in recent years. Although our study was not designed to identify the causes of this convergence, it is consistent with major educational reforms in the U.K. that emphasized greater comprehensiveness, expanded educational opportunities and efforts to raise young people's aspirations.
We also examined the relationship between family socioeconomic background and occupational expectations. In the U.S., this relationship remained relatively modest and stable over time, perhaps reflecting the enduring appeal of the "American Dream" and the country's largely comprehensive secondary school system, which may encourage students from diverse backgrounds to aspire to similar occupations.
In contrast, socioeconomic disparities in occupational expectations declined in the U.K. Historically, the U.K.'s more stratified education system, with earlier and more consequential academic tracking, may have linked students' career expectations more closely to their socioeconomic origins. As educational pathways have broadened and aspirations have been actively promoted, however, this relationship appears to have weakened, suggesting that young people's occupational expectations are becoming less constrained by family background, particularly for high-status careers.
Why do adolescents' occupational expectations matter? How can educators, schools and career counselors use this information to better support students as they prepare for the future—especially with rapid advances in artificial intelligence and changing attitudes toward college and careers?
Adolescents' occupational expectations matter because they are among the strongest predictors of later educational attainment and labor market outcomes. They also provide an early indicator of future inequality. When socioeconomic disparities in occupational expectations widen or narrow, they often foreshadow corresponding changes in educational and economic inequality.
Our findings suggest that schools and policymakers can play an important role in shaping these expectations. Educational systems that expand opportunities and encourage ambitious but realistic aspirations may help reduce socioeconomic disparities in career expectations. Educators and career counselors can use this information to identify students whose aspirations may be constrained by limited exposure to educational or occupational opportunities, provide more personalized career guidance and broaden students' awareness of the pathways available to them. Such efforts can help ensure that career aspirations are shaped more by students' talents and interests than by their family background.
Looking ahead, rapid advances in artificial intelligence are likely to transform the labor market and alter the skills needed for future occupations. It is still too early to know how these changes will influence adolescents' educational and career expectations, but understanding this relationship will be increasingly important. The release of the PISA 2025 data later this year will provide an important opportunity to examine how AI and other emerging societal changes are reshaping young people's visions of their future careers.
Publication details
Study: Soo-yong Byun et al, Shifting futures: Trends in socioeconomic disparities in adolescents' expected occupational status in the United States and the United Kingdom, 2000–2018 (2026).
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Citation: Q&A: What influences teens' career expectations? (2026, July 27) retrieved 28 July 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-07-qa-teens-career.html
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