New Elements of Career Construction for China’s Youth: Analyzing ‘Lying Flat’ and Work Involution Among Emerging Adults

Abstract

This qualitative study examines emerging adulthood traits in individuals during the immediate half year following their graduation from university. It studies their work choices and preferences, as well as their work attitudes. Twenty interviews were conducted with recent Chinese graduates aged 21 to 28, split evenly between those who resigned (RP) and those who did not resign (NRP). Analysis highlights the work preference of stability and taking actions to secure stability, family influence on the work choice, and the impact from COVID. Most participants expressed a desire to balance involution and lying flat. There is potential relationship among initial resignation, work attitude and work state. The study suggests Arnett’s emerging adulthood theory still has applicability when it comes to EA features, however, applying career construction theory to analyze participants’ narratives uncovered struggles and addressed concerns about emerging adults’ perceptions, attitudes, and career performance during the post-pandemic era and economic challenges in China.

Keywords

career choice work attitude emerging adulthood job transition qualitative

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Akosah-Twumasi

Emeto

T. I.

Lindsay

Tsey

Malau-Aduli

B. S.

(2018). A systematic review of factors that influence youths career choices—the role of culture. Frontiers in Education, 3(58), 58. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2018.00058

Arnett

J. J.

(2000). Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. American Psychologist, 55(5), 469–480. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.5.469

Arnett

J. J.

(2004). Emerging adulthood: The winding road from late teens through the twenties (1st ed.). Oxford University Press.

Arnett

J. J.

(2006). Emerging adulthood: Understanding the new way of coming of age. In Arnett

Tanner

(Eds.), Emerging adults in America: Coming of age in the 21st century (pp. 1–3). American Psychological Association.

Arnett

J. J.

(2015a). Emerging adulthood: The winding road from late teens through the twenties (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.

Arnett

J. J.

(2015b). Identity development from adolescence to emerging adulthood: What we know and (especially) don’t know. In The Oxford handbook of identity development (pp. 53–64). Oxford University Press.

Arnett

J. J.

Fishel

(2013). When will my grown-up kid grow up? Loving and understanding your emerging adult. Workman.

Babbie

E. R.

(2020). The practice of social research. Cengage learning.

Chaocheng

Qian

Xinru

Renxian

Fuzhen

Yuchi

Jiang

(2023). Involution-cooperation-lying flat game on a network-structured population in the group competition. IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems, 11(2), 2160–2178. https://doi.org/10.1109/TCSS.2023.3287772

10.

Chen

Al Mamun

Hoque

M. E.

Hussain

W. M. H. W.

Yang

(2023). Work design, employee well-being, and retention intention: A case study of China's young workforce. Heliyon, 9(5), e15742. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844023029493

11.

Creswell

J. W.

(2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (3rd ed.). Sage.

12.

Cui

Hong

Jiao

(2022). Overparenting and emerging adult development: A systematic review. Emerging Adulthood, 10(5), 1076–1094. https://doi.org/10.1177/21676968221108828

13.

English

A. S.

Sun

Zheng

Zhang

Talhelm

(2023). COVID‐19 non‐death loss and acceptance coping: A 3‐wave cross‐lagged panel analysis. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 17(12), e12911.

14.

Geertz

(1963). Agricultural involution: The processes of ecological change in Indonesia (11). Univ of California Press.

15.

Mao

E. Z.

(2023). The impacts of academic stress on college students' problematic smartphone use and Internet gaming disorder under the background of neijuan: Hierarchical regressions with mediational analysis on escape and coping motives. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13(1), 1032700. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1032700

16.

Gunkel

Schlägel

Langella

I. M.

Peluchette

J. V.

Reshetnyak

(2013). The influence of national culture on business students' career attitudes–an analysis of eight countries. German Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(1), 47–68. https://doi.org/10.1688/1862-0000_ZfP_2013_01_Gunkel

17.

Hartung

P. J.

Taber

B. J.

(2008). Career construction and subjective well-being. Journal of Career Assessment, 16(1), 75–85. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072707305772

18.

Heng

Z. Q.

Chin

Tan

C. S.

(2023). Feelings toward lying flatism and attitudes toward singlehood: The mediating role of happiness belief. BMC psychology, 11(1), 156. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-023-01187-2

19.

Henig

R. M.

(2010, August 18). What is it about 20-somethings? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html

20.

Hong

Cui

(2023). Overparenting and psychological wellbeing of emerging adult children in the United States and China. Family Relations, 72(5), 2852–2868. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12839

21.

Konstam

Celen-Demirtas

Tomek

Sweeney

(2015). Career adaptability and subjective well-being in unemployed emerging adults: A promising and cautionary tale. Journal of Career Development, 42(6), 463–477. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894845315575151

22.

Kuwabara

S. A.

Van Voorhees

B. W.

Gollan

J. K.

Alexander

G. C.

(2007). A qualitative exploration of depression in emerging adulthood: Disorder, development, and social context. General Hospital Psychiatry, 29(1), 317–324. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2007.04.001

23.

Marks

L. R.

Yang

Miller

H. H.

Morgan

Yoon

Naar

(2023). Perceived COVID-19 threat, psychological distress, and increases in alcohol and cannabis use at the onset of the pandemic in racially diverse emerging adults. Emerging Adulthood, 11(6), 1476–1488. https://doi.org/10.1177/21676968231198908

24.

Mau

W. C.

(2000). Cultural differences in career decision-making styles and self-efficacy. Journal of vocational behavior, 57(3), 365–378. https://doi.org/10.1006/jvbe.1999.1745

25.

McAdams

D. P.

(2005). Studying lives in time: A narrative approach. Advances in Life Course Research, 10(1), 237–258.

26.

Nam

B. H.

English

A. S.

Hanh Van

Nyman

J. K.

(2023). Subjectivities and the future of comparative and international education: Teacher researchers and graduate student researchers as co-constructive narrative inquirers. Educational Review, 76(5), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2022.2159934

27.

Nam

B. H.

Weber

H. J. L.

Liu

English

A. S.

(2022). The ‘myth of zero-COVID’ nation: A digital ethnography of expats’ survival amid Shanghai lockdown during the omicron variant outbreak. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(15), 9047. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19159047

28.

National Public Servant . (2022, November 02). https://www.chinagwy.org/html/xwsz/ksxw/202211/215_546147.html

29.

Riessman

C. K.

(1993). Narrative analysis. Sage.

30.

Rudolph

C. W.

Zacher

Hirschi

(2019). Empirical developments in career construction theory. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 111, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2018.12.003

31.

Savickas

M. L.

(1997). Adaptability: An integrative construct for life span, life space theory. The Career Development Quarterly, 45, 247–259. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-0045.1997.tb00469.x

32.

Savickas

M. L.

(2002). Career construction: A developmental theory of vocational behavior. In Brown

(Ed.), Career choice and development (4th ed., pp. 149–205). Jossey-Bass.

33.

Savickas

M. L.

(2005). The theory and practice of career construction. In Brown

S. D.

Lent

R. W.

(Eds.), Career development and counseling (pp. 42–70). Wiley.

34.

Savickas

M. L.

(2012). Life design: A paradigm for career intervention in the 21st century. Journal of Counseling & Development, 90(1), 13–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1556-6676.2012.00002.x

35.

Schwandt

T. A.

(2015). The Sage dictionary of qualitative inquiry (4th ed.). Sage.

36.

Swanson

J. A.

(2016). Trends in literature about emerging adulthood: Review of empirical studies. Emerging Adulthood, 4(6), 391–402. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167696816630468

37.

Wang

Hui

(2021). Replicator dynamics for involution in an infinite well-mixed population. Physics Letters A, 420(1), 127759. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physleta.2021.127759

38.

Zheng

Jing

Liu

Zhang

Y. Y.

(2023). Why are people ‘lying flat’? Personal relative deprivation suppresses self-improvement motivation. British Journal of Social Psychology, 62(2), 932–948. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12611

39.

Zhong

Arnett

J. J.

(2014). Conceptions of adulthood among migrant women workers in China. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 38(3), 255265. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025413515133

40.

Zhong

Al Mamun

Masukujjaman

Rahman

M. K.

Gao

Yang

(2023). Modelling the significance of organizational conditions on quiet quitting intention among Gen Z workforce in an emerging economy. Scientific reports, 13(1), 15438. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-42591-3

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.10 MB