Parental involvement and university graduate employment in China

Abstract

In the expanded higher education in China, middle-class students are found to have better access to job information than their underprivileged counterparts; they also gain better jobs in the labour market. Researchers have turned to social capital theory to explain this phenomenon, claiming that middle-class students with wider social network and higher status contacts are more likely to acquire better jobs. Instead of following the social capital approach, this study examines the job search discrepancy between two student groups by investigating the role of parents, that is, parental involvement both prior to and during the graduates’ job search, and the influence of parents in the job search. Sixty-fourth-year students from middle-class and underprivileged social backgrounds in Wuhan were interviewed from 2011 to 2012. Based on these data, middle-class parents are more extensively involved in the job search of their children by offering social ties, constructing middle-class accredited qualities for their children and supervising the job search behaviour of their children. By contrast, underprivileged parents know little about the campus life and job searching experiences of the children. Thus, these parents participate less actively in the job search of their children.