The relationship between the economic status of high school girls and their vocational wishes and expectations

Abstract

On the basis of information supplied by the subjects, 2361 high school girls, 13-19 years old, from the southern or southeastern region, were divided into 4 economic groups. The girls stated their first and second occupational preferences and expectations. 13 occupations (stenography, nursing, teaching, marriage, beauty parlor work, clerical work, music, dietetics, journalism, medicine, commercial art, dress designing, air stewardess) received 87% of the first choices. 84% of the girls of the lowest economic group gave first choice to one of the first 7 occupations, as compared with 57% of the girls of the highest economic group. Conversly only 4% of the former expressed preference for one of the last 6 occupations as compared with 23% for the latter. The former tend more "to fall into a kind of predictable vocational pattern" than the latter. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)