Gender Differences in Perceived Parenting and Career Decision Making of Adolescents

Adolescence is the stage which brings with itself lots of responsibilities, dilemma, and changes. One major challenge during this phase of life is making decisions regarding one's career. At this stage the parenting practices used by the parents might differ with respect to the gender of the child, so as to cater to the specific needs of the gender. It becomes important to have an insight about the perception of these parenting practices from the perspective of the adolescents. The current paper explores the same and tries to examine the prevalence of gender differences in Perceived Parenting and Career Decision Making. It also tries to assess the relationship between perceived parenting and career decision making. 50 girls and 50 boys of the age range 18-20 years were selected for the study. t-test and Pearson's correlation were used to evaluate the obtained data. Results reveal that a significant difference is present between girls and boys in the 'Faulty Role Expectations vs. Realistic Role Expectations' of fathers, and in 'Marital Conflict vs. Adjustment'. In career decision making, causality and stability were found to have significant difference in terms of gender. Various dimensions of perceived parenting of both mothers and fathers were found to be positively correlated with controllability and stability in career decision making.