Career Counseling, Asian Americans

Career Interests

When counseling Asian Americans regarding career issues, it is important to consider the client's career interests. Over the past 20 years only a handful of studies have highlighted the career interest patterns among Asian Americans. For example, in most studies where Chinese American males were compared to other ethnic males, they demonstrated a greater interest in the occupational fields of physical science, skilled technical trades, and business. These males also showed lower levels of interest in areas associated with social service and welfare, sales or business contact, and verbal-linguistic occupations (social). There are other recent studies that show how Asian Americans display career interests that are consistent with realistic and investigative domains. Another way to examine career interests among Asian Americans is to investigate the courses and majors students choose. Data from the National Science Foundation suggest that Asian Americans are twice as likely as White students to have an interest in a science field, and this interest is usually paralleled by high educational aspirations (e.g., aspirations to obtain a doctorate or medical degree).

Occupational Values

Career counselors have to attend to the occupational values of Asian Americans, some of which are money, task satisfaction, prestige in career, and service dedication. When compared to European Americans, Asian Americans placed a greater emphasis on the extrinsic and security values on the occupational values scales and less of an emphasis on values such as self-expression, power, and social factors. This emphasis on extrinsic factors such as security, money, and service to others can be traced back to Asian cultural importance on issues such as pragmatism, collective styles in decision making, and the influences of the processes of acculturation and the experiences of immigration.

Career Choices

It would appear that career choices would be a direct reflection of career interests. However, there are a host of factors that influence career choices among Asian Americans regardless of their career interests. For example, Asian Americans place a high value on parental involvement in their career-related choices, to the point that higher parental involvement can predict more traditional career choices (i.e., science or technology career paths). Studies have shown that Asian American parents are more likely to exert direct influences on their children's career choices and aspirations as a result of fear of their children having to undergo the effects of discrimination. Other influential factors include Asian values of respecting authority and submitting to the wisdom of elderly and family, level of acculturation, family background, and self-efficacy. These factors have yet to be empirically tested, but they suggest that it is imperative to include family in the career counseling process.

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