Demographic trends and vocational behavior: A twenty year retrospective and agenda for the 1990s

Abstract

This review considers how research in vocational behavior reflects demographic changes during the 20 years since the inception of the Journal of Vocational Behavior . The themes of career and life transitions and person/situation matches for minorities, women, and older workers were evident throughout the first 20 years of the journal. The research points to ways of enhancing employees' career resilience, insight, and identity. The increased number of women in the work force during the 1970s was accompanied by research on women's attitudes about work, gaining employment, individual characteristics (e.g., need for achievement, self-efficacy, and role orientation), career decision processes, and life stages. Research on women during the 1980s focused on problems of remaining in the work force, specifically sexual harassment, work/family conflict, job stress, over-coming career barriers, and developing a sense of career identity. The increase of minorities in the work force was reflected in research during the 1970s on educational programs, early career goals, and job attitudes of minorities. Unfortunately, far less research on minorities was published during the 1980s coinciding with decreased political and organizational attention on minority employment. The aging baby boom generation was reflected in research on mid- and late-career experiences—in particular mid-career crises and transitions, career exploration and motivation, and age discrimination. Demographic projections indicate increased diversity and an aging work force, underscoring the need to know more about mid-career transitions and ways of fostering career resilience, insight, and identity throughout ones career.