Mei is a middle-aged lady in search of a new employment. After graduating from junior college, she worked for an international hotel chain for 14 years before becoming a housekeeping supervisor. Her 60-year-old mother fell ill with pneumonia last year, leaving her unable to care for her two children. Because she and her husband couldn’t afford a maid, Mei quit her job to take care of their three children.
In addition, their three-room HDB flat didn’t have any room for one. Now that Mei’s mother has recovered completely, she is ready to return to work. Ideally, she would like to return to a position in a field in which her skills and experience are well-suited. There are a lot of jobs out there that would be a good fit based on her skillset and experience, so she keeps an eye out for them every day. However, she is apprehensive about taking risks and going into new terrain.
Employees have a unique opportunity to advance their careers during job changes. Studying and improving job search skills among mid-career workers from families with lower socioeconomic status (SES), such as Mei’s, SMU Associate Professor Marko Pitesa and his colleagues are working on a study entitled “Understanding and Improving Job Search Skills Among Mid-Career Workers from Families of Lower-Socioeconomic Status.”
“There are some professions that face more difficulties than others.” Professor Pitesa told the Office of Research and Tech Transfer that lower-income women are more at risk of leaving the workforce and having a difficult time finding meaningful employment and being put on a favorable developmental career path. Understanding why this is the case and designing scientifically based measures to mitigate the problem is the goal of this study.”
It is the Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour & Human Resources who studies workplace inclusiveness and ethics. Individual and organizational policies can be used to promote equal opportunity and ethical conduct through his study.
Research financed by the Social and Family Research Fund of the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) is based on the premise that people with varying levels of socioeconomic status (SES) have varying choices for occupations and levels of interdependence and independence.
“Sociological studies find that individuals from lower SES backgrounds are socialized in a manner that emphasizes hard interdependence, whereas individuals from higher-class backgrounds are socialized in a manner that emphasizes expressive independence,” explains Professor Pitesa..
Thus, those in the first group are more likely to continue working in fields that encourage a strong sense of dependency with their coworkers. In contrast, those born into wealthy households are more likely to pursue careers that allow them to exercise a high degree of autonomy and personal flexibility in deciding how and in what way to achieve their career goals.
Mid-career individuals, who are caught between generations, often feel significant levels of stress as they struggle to balance job and family responsibilities, according to a new study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. This is especially true for people with lower socioeconomic status (SES).
It’s common for people who are stressed out to prioritize safety and avoid risk, according to Professor Pitesa. Individuals from these backgrounds may not be able to take full advantage of the job possibilities that are available to them, which has a significant impact on their career trajectory and mobility over time.”
Mid-career workers are the focus of the study, which is ongoing and tracks people through time to learn about their personal and professional situations, preferences, and labor market behavior.
Pitesa explains, “Online surveys are administered at regular intervals and validated measures from research on life circumstances and vocational behavior are used from research into implicit and explicit preferences.”
It’s possible that the inequalities in life conditions between workers from richer and poorer origins will play a significant influence.
Sticky relationships are a term used in economics to describe situations that appear to be unconnected to one’s economic decisions, but can have far-reaching consequences. Mortgaged workers may be unable to take advantage of job chances if the value of their homes drops significantly. Lower-SES workers incur more obligations and restraints due to their lower socioeconomic status,” we argue.
The researchers are mapping these issues out in great detail, and this information is preliminary. As a result, it highlights how this knowledge may identify areas for action at several levels (personal, community, and policy) that would otherwise go unnoticed.
Even though this study is focused on Singapore, Professor Pitesa believes that the problem is likely worldwide, with variable degrees of severity. Studies in other nations, such as in the United States (think Detroit), India, and elsewhere, have shown clues of this problem as well, and our focus on this career stage and these populations is informed by our work on difficulties lower-SES workers generally encounter
This effort to better understand and solve mid-career obstacles contributes to a broader effort to deal with career concerns that certain groups of employees are likely to confront, even though the specifics of the problem are context-dependent.
The intervention may be implemented in a variety of ways. For example, Professor Pitesa states that because the technology has already proven useful, it can be used to create comparable results in the future. We also focus on making the intervention accurate and streamlined so that we can better determine which aspects of the intervention are most beneficial. “
There is a lot of room for improvement in the future. In addition, the intervention can be tailored to the specific needs of the local community. In the future, they plan to work on translations for Southeast and South Asia, as well as other regions.
Professor Pitesa’s overall research and social impact activities are directly influenced by this work.
Since my research interests and MSF’s goals are in sync, I’ve had an ongoing engagement with MSF since receiving a funding for a similar-themed research study.
