As Kids Age, Optimism About Job Prospects Declines
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iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — Childhood is supposed to be a time of wide-eyed wonderment with a certain amount of naiveté thrown in for good measure.
But if a new Gallup poll of 800,000 kids between the ages of 10 and 18 is any indication, youngsters have become as jaded as adults, at least about their future prospects for work.
Gallup says that about seven in ten fifth-grade students believe that they’ll be able to find a “good” job when the time comes to look for full-time work.
However, by the time their senior year in high school rolls around, reality seems to set in and so does pessimism about employment. At that stage, just 49 percent of teens feel confident that a “good” job awaits them down the road.
What’s more, even though females have made significant strides in the workplace over a few generations, girls today don’t seem to think it’s a meaningful development.
That might explain why between fifth- and 12-grade, the number of girls who feel they’ll get a “good” job plummets by 24 percentage points compared to 17 points for boys.
Either way, the study’s authors say this illustrates why “leaders of all kinds — from education to government to business — need to consider building a stronger connection between education and employment to try to keep students’ job optimism high as they advance in school.”
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