Parents, Educational Attainment, Jobs and Satisfaction: What's the Connection? A 10-Year Portrait of Canadian Young Women and Men

Abstract

In this study, we examine relationships among parental background, post-secondary attainment, occupational status, and extrinsic and intrinsic job satisfaction of a cohort of British Columbia youth who graduated from high school in 1988. This cohort was studied through surveys conducted in 1989, 1993, and 1998. Consistent with cultural reproduction theory, it was expected that via the route of educational and occupational attainment, individuals from relatively advantaged families would report higher job satisfaction than others. In this study, we take account of gendered dispositions as another critical form of capital. In our analyses, we include those who have never attended a post-secondary institution following high school, through to those who have completed a minimum of a university degree. Simultaneous two-group LISREL models by gender were specified and estimated. Analyses reveal that significant relationships are, for the most part, direct and sequential, and that every step in the sequence matters. Parents, by virtue of being more highly educated and holding higher status jobs, did not directly or indirectly influence the status of occupations their children will hold as young adults. Rather, parental privilege is passed on to their children via the route of educational attainment. Also, our analyses reveal important gender differences. The findings extend our understanding of these relationships and raise important questions about the ways investment in higher education is translated into occupational status and eventual job satisfaction for women and men.