Occupation and Patterns of Migration

Abstract

points of crisis, the individual is said to be faced with conflicting expectations. Choice between these expectations is viewed as problematic and productive of problems of adjustment. Our analysis indicates that conflict does not necessarily occur in assuming an occupational identity. When conflict does occur it centers around disparities between parental and occupational expectations. The following elements are importantly involved in the process: the specificity of family desires and the power of the family to make these felt, the character of the commitment and the time at which it is required by particular occupations, the nature of the occupational ideology and the kinds of social support for it, and the timing of appearance of incompatibilities between family and occupational expectations. It is the relationship among these that determines whether or not conflict and the necessity of adjustment will occur.