0000000000875027
AUTHOR
Florencia Sortheix
Changes in Young Europeans’ Values During the Global Financial Crisis
We investigate the impact of the global financial crisis (GFC) on the personal values of youth and young adults (age 16–35 years) from 16 European countries. Using time series cross-sectional data from seven waves (2002–2014) of the European Social Survey, we examined (1) whether the GFC led to value shifts between cohorts of young people and (2) whether welfare state provision moderate the expected value shifts. Multilevel analyses showed that, following the GFC, the importance of security, tradition, benevolence, and, to a lesser extent, conformity values increased. In contrast, hedonism, self-direction, and stimulation values decreased. In line with our moderation hypothesis, power, and…
Gendered Pathways Toward STEM Careers: The Incremental Roles of Work Value Profiles Above Academic Task Values.
Drawing on Eccles’ expectancy-value model of achievement-related choices, we examined how work values predict individual and gender differences in sciences, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) participations in early adulthood (ages of 25/27, 6 or 8 years after postsecondary school), controlling for subjective task values attached to academic subjects in late adolescence (11th grade, age 18). The study examined 1,259 Finnish participants using a person-oriented approach. Results showed that: (a) we could identify four profile groups based on five core work values (society, family, monetary, career prospects, and working with people); (b) work-value profiles predicted young adults actua…
Work values and the transition to work life: A longitudinal study
Abstract Research on career development has shown that work values play a key motivational role in job selection and career development. In the context of the current economic crisis, it is of particular relevance to examine the role of work values for employment in the transition from school to work. This longitudinal study examined the role of intrinsic (perceived importance of having a job that is interesting and matches one's own competences), rewards (having a good salary and high chance for promotion), and security (having a stable job) work values on subsequent employment status and person–job fit (how an individual's job matches one's own characteristics such as education and job pr…
Values and subjective well-being
Research on relations of personal values to subjective well-being has begun to flourish only recently. This is surprising because our values represent what we consider important and worth pursuing in life, and our subjective well-being (henceforth SWB) represents how happy and satisfied we are with the life we are leading. This chapter summarizes what we know about value—SWB relations and identifies some of what we do not know but would like to know. We first discuss the nature of values and the structured system they form. We then note three theoretical perspectives on relations of values to SWB (Sagiv & Schwartz, 2000; Sagiv, Roccas & Hazan, 2004). The first perspective seeks to explain d…
The development of work values during the transition to adulthood: A two-country study
Abstract This study addresses the development of work values—the desired characteristics of one's current or future job—during young adulthood. Using two panel studies from Germany ( N = 2506) and Finland ( N = 1326), we investigated (a) mean-level and rank-order change and stability in work values across three biennial waves (age 20/21 to age 25/26); and (b) the influence of stable background characteristics as well as of major transitions in family and work roles on inter-individual differences and intra-individual changes in work values. Latent measurement models with three work value dimensions showed good fit in both countries: extrinsic (importance of job security and material rewar…
The role of career values for work engagement during the transition to working life
Abstract The present longitudinal study examined the role of career values for work engagement across the transition from university education to working life. Finnish young adults reported on their career values (intrinsic, rewards, and security values) at the age of 23; and the degree of person–organization fit (value congruence, and congruence between one's education and the job), subjective income and economic stress two years later at the age of 25. Work engagement was assessed at both measurement points. Structural equation modeling results showed, first, that intrinsic but not rewards or security career values were related to work engagement. Second, value congruence and having a job…
Values that Underlie and Undermine Well–Being: Variability across Countries
We examined relations of 10 personal values to life satisfaction (LS) and depressive affect (DEP) in representative samples from 32/25 countries ( N = 121 495). We tested hypotheses both for direct relations and cross–level moderation of relations by Cultural Egalitarianism. We based hypotheses on the growth versus self–protection orientation and person–focus versus social–focus motivations that underlie values. As predicted, openness to change values (growth/person) correlated positively with subjective well–being (SWB: higher LS, lower DEP) and conservation values (self–protection/social) correlated negatively with SWB. The combination of underlying motivations also explained more comple…
What drives future business leaders? How work values and gender shape young adults' entrepreneurial and leadership aspirations
Who wants to become a business leader? We investigated whether young adults' work values (i.e., the importance placed on different job characteristics and rewards) predict their entrepreneurial aspirations (i.e., the intention to create a venture) and leadership aspirations (i.e., the intention to become a leader in a business context). Furthermore, we illuminated whether gender differences in work values contribute to the pervasive gender gap in these aspirations. Analyses in a sample of young adults from Finland (N = 1138) revealed that a higher importance placed on extrinsic rewards and a lower importance placed on security at age 21 predicted higher entrepreneurial and leadership aspira…
The development of work values during the transition to adulthood : A two-country study
This study addresses the development of work values—the desired characteristics of one's current or future job—during young adulthood. Using two panel studies from Germany (N = 2506) and Finland (N = 1326), we investigated (a) mean-level and rank-order change and stability in work values across three biennial waves (age 20/21 to age 25/26); and (b) the influence of stable background characteristics as well as of major transitions in family and work roles on inter-individual differences and intra-individual changes in work values. Latent measurement models with three work value dimensions showed good fit in both countries: extrinsic (importance of job security and material rewards), intrinsi…
What drives future business leaders? How work values and gender shape young adults' entrepreneurial and leadership aspirations
Highlights • Work values strongly predict later entrepreneurial aspirations and leadership aspirations. • The pattern of relationships was similar but not identical for both aspirations. • There is a gender gap in both entrepreneurial aspirations and leadership aspirations. • Gender differences in work values contribute to the gender gap in these aspirations. Abstract Who wants to become a business leader? We investigated whether young adults' work values (i.e., the importance placed on different job characteristics and rewards) predict their entrepreneurial aspirations (i.e., the intention to create a venture) and leadership aspirations (i.e., the intention to become a leader in a business…
Unpacking the link between family socioeconomic status and civic engagement during the transition to adulthood: Do work values play a role?
We investigated whether the link between family-of-origin socioeconomic status (SES) and civic engagement in young adulthood is mediated by youth’s work values, i.e., the desired characteristics of their current or future jobs. We used data from a Finnish study: 2004 (age 16–18, NT1 = 1,301); 2011 (age 23–25, N T2 = 1,096); and 2014 (age 25–27, NT3 = 1,138). A lower family SES in 2004 was negatively related to youth’s civic engagement in 2014. Lower family SES predicted the importance that youth attached to extrinsic job rewards (e.g., good pay) in 2011, but not the importance of intrinsic job rewards (e.g., learning opportunities). Extrinsic work values, in turn, predicted lower civic enga…