Social Mobility and Vocational Outcomes: A Psychology of Working Perspective

Abstract

The current study was aimed at understanding how social mobility relates to vocational outcomes. Drawing from Psychology of Working Theory (PWT), social mobility was operationalized as changes in experiences of economic constraints and marginalization between childhood and adulthood. We used latent profile analysis to create profiles among a sample of employed adults ( N = 533) and compared profile membership to PWT informed outcomes: work volition, career adaptability, and decent work. The five profiles of social mobility that emerged were as follows: sustained privilege (low levels of marginalization and economic constraints during childhood and adulthood), downward mobility (low levels of marginalization and economic constraints in childhood, high levels in adulthood), upward mobility (high levels of marginalization and economic constraints in childhood, low levels in adulthood), highly marginalized (high levels of marginalization at both points), and sustained barriers (high levels of marginalization and economic constraints in childhood and adulthood). Participants who belonged to the sustained privilege and upward mobility groups experienced greater work volition and decent work compared to those in groups who experienced higher levels of economic constraints and marginalization throughout their lives. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Mapping the literature on decent work: A bibliometric analysis of sustainable development goal 8

“…The node of the network system identifies the author of a paper, and an edge shows whether two authors have co-authored one or more Kim et al, 2022;Perez et al, 2023). The decent work using the Psychology of Working Theory investigates the psychological and social elements that affect people's experiences, the economic constraints and outcomes in the workplace, and serves as the theoretical foundation for the publications (Duffy et al, 2019(Duffy et al, , 2020Masdonati et al, 2022;Perez et al, 2023).…”

“…The node of the network system identifies the author of a paper, and an edge shows whether two authors have co-authored one or more Kim et al, 2022;Perez et al, 2023). The decent work using the Psychology of Working Theory investigates the psychological and social elements that affect people's experiences, the economic constraints and outcomes in the workplace, and serves as the theoretical foundation for the publications (Duffy et al, 2019(Duffy et al, , 2020Masdonati et al, 2022;Perez et al, 2023). Numerous articles examine the association between decent work and other constructs, including social mobility, career prospects, quality education, physical and mental health, and access to meaningful employment (Allan et al, 2019;Duffy et al, 2021Duffy et al, , 2022Perez et al, 2023).…”

Recommendations for Conceptualizing and Measuring Constructs Within Psychology of Working Theory

“…This is likely because when participants complete the survey they assume all items are positively worded and answer that way, even when items call for opposite answers. One recent study addressed this issue by simply changing the four negatively worded items to be positively worded, matching the other 11 items (Perez et al, 2023). This procedure proved to be very helpful in improving the internal consistency reliability of the scales score for the adequate compensation and free time for rest subscales.…”

“…In the original, validated version of the scale (Duffy et al, 2017), four items were negatively worded, including two items from the adequate compensation subscale (#’s 7 and 8) and two items from the free time and rest subscale (#’s 10 and 11). Several recent studies (e.g., Perez et al, 2023) have simply reworded these four items to be positively valanced, with the adapted items listed below:○ #7: I am properly paid for my work.○ #8: I feel I am paid enough based on my qualifications and experience.○ #10: I have enough time for non-work activities○ #11: I have time to rest during the work week.…”

“…The other two subscales assess constraints to volition (financial constraints, structural constraints) and are more useful for authors who are interested in barriers to volition. As another example, the adaptability subscale of the CFI is nine items, although one recent study just used the three items that most correspond to the adaptability definition within PWT (Perez et al, 2023). Scores on this shortened scale evidenced good internal consistency reliability.…”