Australian Journal of Career Development

Not all green collar work is created equal, yet measures of its sustainability, cast against the triple bottom line that underlies the Sustainable Development Goals (People, Planet, Prosperity) remain under-developed. We applied a published protocol for indexing sustainable livelihoods identifying, rating and ranking the 10 most sustainable green collar livelihoods in contemporary New Zealand. The resulting mini-index of sustainable livelihoods provides a proof-of-concept for combining with the remaining 12 livelihood collars identified in the Wheel of Work. Responding to the International Labor Organization's (ILO) identification of decent work, poverty eradication and environmental sustainability as most significant challenges for the twenty-first century, this pilot study is the first step in the development of a full Sustainable Livelihoods Index (SL-I). More than structures of decent work, an SL-I will help guide and incentivize multiple directly invested groups - students, organizations, and government workforce development agencies - towards comparatively sustainable forms of livelihood that protect, people, planet and prosperity.

Career identity is a critical developmental outcome for university students transitioning from education to employment. This study examines the relations among dispositional employability, career adaptability, job search self-efficacy, and the career identity of Australian undergraduate health science students. Participants were 1,236 first-year non-vocational health science students who completed a survey embedded within a curriculum-based career development module. Multinomial logistic regression tested if dispositional employability, career adaptability, and job search self-efficacy were significantly associated with four career identity statuses: diffused, moratorium, foreclosed, and achieved. Results demonstrated that career motivation and optimism were strongly associated with career identity. Distinct patterns emerged between trait and state optimism. Job search self-efficacy also showed meaningful associations with career identity. Career agency was particularly important for students experiencing career identity uncertainty, supporting adaptation and exploration. We advance career identity research by highlighting the importance of psychosocial resources and informing targeted career development interventions within university curricula.

The perception of climate change and its effects is growing among career researchers and practitioners. The aim of this article is to explore the reflection of climate change in high school students’ career aspirations because young people are those who will most be affected by climate change in the future. Fourteen semi-structured interviews with Czech high school students were analyzed based on the constructivist grounded theory. We propose the notion of the future and the relevance of climate change as two main categories from which to create four niches to illustrate the reflections of climate change in students’ potential careers. The recommendations for practical application are suggested for the field of career guidance and environmental education. Specifically, the study advocates for a mindful reflection of climate change when providing career support to students.

Refugees’ longer-term settlement is closely tied to education, employment, and access to decent and meaningful work, yet little is known about how they conceptualise ‘jobs’, ‘career’ and ‘career development’ after resettlement. This qualitative study explored these conceptions among seven people with refugee backgrounds in Australia and consulted them about career supports gaps and recommendations. Distinguishing jobs from careers, participants framed jobs as survival-oriented and contingent, and careers as longer-term, self-aligned pathways offering direction and stability. Their conceptions of career development expanded when prompted to consider contextual pressures, relational obligations, and life responsibilities as part of, rather than separate from, the process. Career support was often experienced as job-facing, invisible, and culturally unfamiliar. The need for culturally responsive, developmentally timed career support involving families, communities, dialogue, and exposure to host-country labour-market expectations is highlighted as part of a sustainable career development agenda. Implications for career theory, practice and research are outlined.

Accelerating job automation and changing occupational requirements are creating new opportunities and challenges for career education stakeholders in developing young people's career preparedness. To critically examine the conceptual and practical complexities of supporting young people's preparedness for automation and job change, a case study was conducted of the Scottish career education system. This comprised of a thematic analysis of national career education documents, interviews with two career policymakers, a focus group with seven career practitioners, and interviews with five primary and secondary schoolteachers. Findings revealed policymakers and practitioners conceptualised automation as creating new occupations rather than resulting in the mass elimination of jobs. Alongside difficulties addressing new information demands and career uncertainty, stakeholders suggested that exploring the novel technological and occupational changes can inspire children's career development. It is argued that stakeholders can go beyond the promotion of meta/general skills to teach the principles underlying automation and job change.

As Chinese doctoral graduates increasingly transition to secondary education, this study explores the potential motivational mechanisms. Employing a grounded theory method, we analyzed the semi-structured interviews of 27 participants in China, we develop a multi-level motivational framework integrating human capital theory and social cognitive theories within a Push-Pull-Mooring (PPM) architecture. Findings reveal that push factors and pull factors operate through mooring conditions at both institutional and psychological conditions. Institutional security that is front-loaded interacts with psychological recourses to shape decision pathways. Reconceptualizing the transition as an active occupational recalibration rather than a passive withdrawal from academic precarity, we identify risk timing as a critical temporal mechanism in the PPM process: front-loaded security strengthens the pull toward alternative careers, whereas back-loaded security intensifies the push away from academia. The study illuminates highly skilled labor redistribution and offers implications for teacher workforce policy, and career support in China and comparable Asian contexts.

The general aim of this study is to phenomenologically examine the factors affecting career adaptability through the eyes of prospective counsellors. This study has been methodologically structured within the phenomenological framework per qualitative research paradigms. Fifteen individuals were participated into this study via criterion sampling, a strategic variant of purposive sampling techniques. The apparatus deployed for data collection was a semi-structured interview schedule. The content analysis technique was rigorously applied to this study. The content analysis unfolded through a four-stage process. According to the study's findings, two themes were reached: “Explorations into Factors Contributing to the Formation of Vocational Identity in Counselling” and “Explorations on Factors Enhancing Career Adaptability in the Field of Counselling.” In addition, this process was analyzed with a total of 22 codes.

Meaning in life and meaning in work are increasingly recognized as relevant for gifted individuals’ careers, even if they remain underexplored in the literature. This article presents a scoping review examining studies on meaning in life and/or work among gifted populations across multiple databases. Fourteen studies were included from 854 records, encompassing both quantitative and qualitative studies. This scoping review mapped the theoretical frameworks used, identified how giftedness was operationalized, examined methodological approaches, highlighted key themes and gaps in existing literature about meaning in life and meaning in work among gifted individuals. The findings provide perspectives for better understanding meaning in life and meaning in work in gifted populations, also offering research directions for career development studying sustainable talents.

Vocational education plays a crucial role in career development and poverty alleviation, especially in low-income rural areas of China. This study uses large-scale survey data from Central and Western China to assess its impact on employment, income, and social capital, employing propensity score matching (PSM) and regression analysis. The findings show significant improvements in economic and social outcomes, with notable benefits for women and those in the western region. Three key mechanisms—skill enhancement, expanded employment opportunities, and improved social capital—are identified as pathways linking vocational education to poverty alleviation and career growth. The results provide strong evidence for policymakers to optimize vocational education strategies, contributing to sustainable rural revitalization and addressing both immediate economic needs and long-term career development.

Self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) represent an increasingly important group in global talent mobility and contribute to organizational knowledge creation in culturally diverse work environments. This study examines how cultural intelligence (CQ) and learning goal orientation relate to innovative work behavior among SIEs and investigates the mediating role of protean career orientation. Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory and protean career theory, we conceptualize CQ as a capability-based resource and learning goal orientation as a motivational resource that drives individuals’ resource investment in learning and adaptation. Protean career orientation is positioned as a higher-order resource management mechanism that guides the conversion of personal resources into career-related actions. Data were collected from 312 self-initiated expatriates working in Taiwan, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used for analysis. The results show that protean career orientation partially mediates the relationships between CQ, learning goal orientation, and innovative work behavior, suggesting that personal resources are more effectively translated into innovative behavior through self-directed career management processes.

This study validated a 20-item Decisional Capital (DC) scale for novice teachers using the Multidimensional Graded Response Model (MGRM), a multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) approach. Analyzing data from 499 novice teachers, the research supported a three-subscale structure and confirmed all items as meaningful contributors. The four-response category model showed optimal fit, with item discrimination parameters ranging from 1.07 to 3.95, effectively differentiating between low and high DC levels. Difficulty estimates indicated that teachers with low DC endorsed lower response categories. The MGRM analysis provided valuable psychometric insights, offering structural and item-level evidence in support of the scale's use in educational research and practice, and enhancing our understanding of decisional capital in novice teachers’ instructional decision-making processes.