PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY AND EMPLOYMENT OF YOUNG GRADUATES (ALEVEL + 4 YEARS, A-LEVEL + 5 YEARS) IN ABIDJAN

Abstract

While education is the path par excellence to success, young graduates have inflated the already alarming rate of unemployment in recent years. The employment of young graduates and those of higher education in particular, is one of the problems encountered by many countries, particularly Côte d'Ivoire. To this end, it is important that particular attention be paid to it in order to lead to an understanding of the phenomenon and to propose reflections as to solutions. This study therefore aims to examine the relationship between professional identity and the integration of young higher education graduates in Abidjan. In other words, the objective of this work is to analyze the problem of the integration of young higher education graduates and to try to explain it in the light of the aforementioned variable, namely professional identity. It concerns two hundred and twenty (220) young graduates of higher education (A-level + 4 years; A-level + 5 years) whose age varies between 18 and 35 years. The approach consisted of collecting information from these young people about their professional identity through a questionnaire. This information allowed us to categorize the subjects according to whether they present a successful or confused professional identity and relate it to professional integration. The statistical processing of the data gives a very significant Chi-square (X² = 12.04; P ≤ 0.001) and shows the existence of a link between the two variables under study. Thus, the analyzes reveal that young graduates with a successful professional identity are more likely to integrate compared to their peers who have a confused professional identity. These results confirm the working hypothesis put forward at the start and are in line with those of previous work carried out in this field. They allow an understanding of the phenomenon of unemployed graduates with regard to the Social Cognitive Theory of Careers of Lent Brown and Hackett (1994) and constitute an important contribution for researchers in education.