Adulthood

Work and Leisure

Work, Leisure, and Retirement
Occupational Selection & Development:
Learning Objectives

• How do people view work? How do occupational

priorities vary with age?
• How do people choose their occupations? What theories
describe occupational and career development?
• What factors influence occupational expectations? How
can people benefit from mentors?
• What is the relationship between job satisfaction and
age?
 The Meaning of Work
• What are you going to be when you grow up?
• Most people work to make a living but also find meaning in their
work
• Prestige, social recognition, sense of worth, excitement, creativity,
power
• Meaning-mission fit: the alignment between one’s personal view of
work and the company’s missions
• Greater alignment can have multiple self and other benefits
• Personal fulfillment is derived from work in four ways
• Developing and becoming self
• Union with others
• Expressing self
• Serving others
 Occupational Choice and
Career Development
• Career construction theory
• Posits that people build careers through their own actions that
result from the interface of their personal characteristics and the
social context
• What people “do” in the world of work results from how they
adapt to their environment which in turn results from the
biopsychosocial processes grounded in the collection of
experiences they have during their lives.
 Holland’s Theory Revisited

• Holland: people pursue careers that are a good fit between their
(a) abilities and (b) interests
• Six personality types: investigative, social, realistic, artistic,
conventional, and enterprising
• Women are more likely manifest the social, artistic, or conventional
type
• Men and women in the same occupation are similar in personality
type
 Social Cognitive Career Theory
• Social cognitive career theory (SCCT) – four or six variable version
• Self-efficacy (perceived ability)
• Outcome expectations (predicted success)
• Interest (what one likes)
• Choice goals (what one desires to achieve)
• Support (how environment would help)
• Barriers (how environment would frustrate one’s career)
• The six-variable SCCT model receives better support
• People will not choose an occupation or career, even though
interested, unless they have high self-efficacy
• External factors (e.g., stereotypes) affect perceptions of self-efficacy
• Personal beliefs, ethnic, gender and economic factors
 Super’s Theory – Stages
• Moving up the ladder – Are you a “fast-tracker” or a “dead-ender”.
• Changes in self-concept and adaptation to one’s occupational role
progress through five distinct stages of the occupational continuum
• Implementation
• Establishment
• Maintenance
• Deceleration
• Retirement
 Super’s Theory – Tasks

• During adulthood, people progress through three

developmental tasks
• Implementation (trying out jobs)
• Stabilization (making an occupational choice)
• Consolidation (advancing up the career ladder)
 Super’s Theory – Developmental Stages

• The three adult developmental tasks overlap with four

developmental stages
• Exploratory (age 15-24)
• Establishment (age 24-44)
• Maintenance (age 45-64)
• Decline (age 65 and beyond)
• As we stay in a career or change careers, we cycle and recycle
through the tasks and stages
Occupational Expectations

• Occupational and career expectations change over time as a

function of changes in self-concept and self-efficacy
• Interests change as we see our occupation as a poor fit or requiring
more education
• Reality shock: what we learned during training (e.g., in a
classroom) may not transfer directly into what the “real world”
job expects of us or needs us to know to perform the job well
The Role of Mentors and Coaches
• Kram described four phases of the mentoring relationship
• Initiation
• Cultivation
• Separation
• Redefinition
Initiation Stage
Cultivation Stage
Separation Stage
Redefinition Stage
 Job Satisfaction
• Psychological capital – positive outlook improves processes and
outcomes
• The positive feeling resulting from an appraisal of one’s work
• Middle-aged workers are more satisfied with work’s intrinsic
than extrinsic rewards
• Satisfaction’s relationship to age is cyclical, depending on:
• How well the job allows one to meet family responsibilities present
at any given age
• Age-related differences in how people balance their lives with work
• How might this differ for white and blue collar workers?
Alienation and Burnout
• Alienation
• Workers’ feelings that their work is meaningless and
devalued
• Burnout
• Feeling exploited and the depletion of a worker’s energy
• Passion
• Obsessive passion
• Harmonious passion
Gender, Ethnicity, Discrimination
Issues: Learning Objectives

• How do women’s and men’s occupational expectations

differ? How are people viewed when they enter occupations
that are not traditional for their gender?
• What factors are related to women’s occupational
development?
• What factors affect ethnic minority workers’ occupational
experiences and occupational development?
• What types of bias and discrimination hinder the occupational
development of women and ethnic minority workers?
Employment Equity
The purpose of the Employment Equity Act, No 55 of 1998
is to achieve equity in the workplace by promoting equal
opportunity and fair treatment in employment through
elimination of unfair discrimination and implementing
affirmative action measures to redress the disadvantages in
employment experienced by designated groups, in order to
ensure equitable representation in all occupational
categories and levels in the workforce.
What is unfair discrimination?
In accordance with article 09 of the South African
Constitution, all persons are equal before law and
there can't be any discrimination on the grounds of
race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or
social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age,
disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture,
language and birth. The law also prohibits antiunion
discrimination by employers. Employment Equity
Act also prohibits discrimination on the basis of
family responsibilities and HIV status other than
those mentioned above.
The effects of the
2008–2009 global
financial crisis on the
South African economy
continued to linger in
2014.
Food and beverage
 Women and Occupational Development

• Female professionals leave jobs because they see the organization

as:
• Supporting masculine values rather than women’s preference for ones
valuing relationships, interdependence, and collaboration

Alienating, where workers are

disconnected from each other and
where the work lacks meaning
Ethnicity and Occupational Development
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• Who do you believe might be more comfortable choosing

nontraditional careers
• Who do you believe may unnecessarily limit their career choices
due to perceptions of career barriers and myths
• Do you believe different ethnic groups benefit the more from
same-ethnicity mentors or cross-ethnic mentoring?
• What is the reality in the South African work-place?
Bias and Discrimination

• Gender bias
• Gender discrimination: denying someone a job based on
their gender
• Glass ceiling: the promotional level above which women
may not go
• Glass cliff: women obtaining a precarious promotion, e.g.,
in times of an organizational crisis
• Women are paid, on average, 80% of what men in the same
positions are paid
Sexual Harassment

• Women in the workplace report being sexually harassed (28%+)

or its potential (58%)
• 16% of formal legal charges involve sexual harassment of men
• Victims are most often young, single, or divorced
• Research shows that harassment results in negative emotional,
mental health, and job-related outcomes
Age Discrimination
• Age discrimination: denying a job/promotion to an
individual solely based on age
• In America federal law prohibits this practice for workers
over the age of 40
• Nonetheless, older people commonly are offered retirement
incentives to stop working
• Boomerang employees
• Individuals who terminate employment at one point in time,
but return to work in the same organization at a future time
Occupational Transitions:
Learning Objectives
• Why do people change occupations?
• Is worrying about potential job loss a major source of
stress?
• How does job loss affect the amount of stress
experienced?
Retraining Workers

• The reasons people leave their jobs are varied

• Retraining workers
• Career plateauing: occurs when there is a lack of opportunity
or when a person decides not to seek advancement
• The retraining of mid-career and older workers emphasizes
the need for lifelong learning
 A engineer who, while visiting China, came across a large
crew of men building a dam with picks and shovels.

When the engineer pointed out to the supervisor that the

job could be completed in a few days, rather than many months,
if the men were given motorized earthmoving equipment,

The supervisor replied: such equipment would destroy

many jobs

Oh, the engineer responded,

“I thought you were interested in building a dam.
If it’s more jobs you want, why don’t you have your men
use spoons instead of shovels.”
 Occupational Insecurity
• Economic conditions have resulted in many people losing jobs
• Technological advancement has resulted in many people losing
jobs
• People’s coping strategy predicts how stressed they will feel about
job loss
• Emotion-focused coping: trying to make oneself feel better about a
stressful situation or denying their feelings; results in greater stress
• Problem-focused coping: recognizing the problem and doing
something to fix it
 Work and Family:
Learning Objectives
• What are the issues faced by people who
care for dependents?
• How do partners view the division of
household chores? What is work-family
conflict, and how does it affect couples’
lives?
 Coping with Unemployment
• Unemployment often results in declines in physical
and mental health plus self-esteem
• Recommendations
• Approach job loss with a healthy sense of urgency
• Consider next career move and what must be done
to achieve it
• Admit and react to change as soon as you realize it
is there
• Be cautious of stop-gap employment
 Unemployment by Age and Education
60%

50%

1200
40%

30%

1000 20%

10%

800 0%
Up to grade 11 Matric Tertiary All

1995 1995 2005 % Change

600
No. of Ue

2005
400

200

0
15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42 45 48 51 54 57 60 63
Age
 The Dependent Care Dilemma
• Employed caregivers revisited
• Many mothers have to return to work after the birth of a
baby
• Some women struggle with the dilemma of financial
need vs. caring for their children
• Some women feel the need to return to work as a result
of attachment to their work
• Stage of the lifecycle and gender both affect
perceptions of ideal working hours
 Employed Caregivers
• Do you believe women are punished even for
taking short leaves
• 80% of women spend 23 hours/week caring for
parents and 70% contribute money
• Caring for dependents negatively affects
• Stress levels
• Career opportunities and promotions
• Coping abilities
Dependent Care and Effects on Workers

• Women caregivers experience greater

problems than men
• Problems can be ameliorated by providing:
• Good partner or family support systems
• Women with high control over their jobs
(e.g., schedules)
Dependent Care and Employer Responses
• Backup care: emergency care for dependents
preventing employees from missing work
• Results in less work-family conflict, lower
absenteeism, and higher job satisfaction only
when organizations adopt a justice approach
• Sympathetic and supportive supervisors
• Support for family and childcare issues
• Also helpful: job sharing, autonomy, lower
productivity demands, and flexible schedules
 Juggling Multiple Roles
• Women still perform the lion’s share of housework
• Unequal division of labour causes the most arguments
and most unhappiness in dual-earner couples
• Satisfaction with the division of household labour is
higher for:
• Men when equitably divided
• Women when men are willing to perform women’s
traditional chores
 Dividing Household Chores
• In our diverse society which ethnic group of men are
more likely to help with domestic chores?
International insights …
• In dual-earner couples, African-American women are
twice as likely as men to feel overburdened/dissatisfied
with family life
• Mexican-American men born in Mexico help out more,
especially when their wives earn more of the family’s
income
• Navajo women not living on a reservation do more of
the traditional chores
 Work-Family Conflict
• Highest stress level and work-family conflict is
when there are at least two preschool children in
the home
• Women are most bothered when husbands are
unwilling to do “women’s work”
• Dual-earner couples
have difficulty finding
time for each other
• What activities are leisure activities? How do people
choose among them?
• What changes in leisure activities occur with age?
• What do people derive from leisure activities?

Leisure Activities:
Learning Objectives
 Types of Leisure Activities
• Leisure: discretionary activities, including simple relaxation and
those for enjoyment or creative pursuits
• Choice of leisure activities depends upon:
• Perceived competence, psychological comfort
• Health, income, transportation, education, social characteristics,
interests, abilities
• Depression and dementia increase as frequency of leisure
activities decreases
 Developmental Changes in Leisure
• Young adults participate in a greater range of,
and more intense, activities
• Middle-aged adults’ leisure activities are home-
and family-oriented and less physically
strenuous
• Engagement in, and preferences for, types of
leisure activities is stable from young to older
adulthood
Consequences of Leisure Activities
• Related to well-being, mental health
• Strengthens feelings of attachment to, and satisfaction with,
partners, family, and friends
• Allows for exploration of interpersonal relationships and
approval seeking
• Improves social acceptance, friendships, and acceptance of
differences in persons with disabilities
• Serves as a personal transformation vehicle