Influence of Income and Education of the Parents on the Career Aspirations of Industrial Aspirants

Abstract

Latest Aspiring Minds National Employability Report reveals that only 20 per cent of the engineering graduates are employable.  Career aspirations measure the strength of an aspirants’ intention to be active in a particular career field. Our notion of career aspiration shows similarities with the notion of 'career anchors' from Schein (Schein, 1977; Schein, 1994), who differentiates between managerial competence, technical competence, security, creativity, and   autonomy / independence. Furthermore, career aspirations represent a type of mental self selection. This assumption is supported by the so-called “Person-Job-Fit-Theory“, relying on the hypothesis of a “congruence between person and working environment” (Weinert, 1998), according to which there is an agreement between the expectations, needs and values of the individual on the one hand and the circumstances, opportunities, parental income, education and chances, with which certain carrier fields can fulfill these aspirations on the other hand. Holland builds his theory of “vocational choice“(Holland, 1973, 1985) on a similar premise: There is an interaction between personality and behavioral characteristics and one’s vocational choices, so that people tend to move into career fields that are congruent with their personal qualities. Thus our concept works as a so-called “matching-model” (Hall, 1987b) that focuses on the match or fit between the personality traits and the career field. In the present paper the researchers do believe and bring out the influence of the Income and Education of the parents on the Career Aspirations of Industrial Aspirants. The authors have undertaken the present Descriptive Research study among the Engineering Graduates (Fresh BE., and B.Tech.,) selected for one year Graduate Apprenticeship at a Heavy Engineering and Manufacturing Public Sector. The sample size was 149 having the mixture of major discipline in Engineering and passed out from different colleges in Tamilnadu. Data were collected at the time of their joining by using census sampling procedure through a pre-designed interview schedule. Appropriate statistical tools have been used for analysis and the results.

Keywords: Career Aspirations, Technical Competency, Practical and Behavioral skills, Industrial Aspirants, Income and Education of the parents.