Career and Family Expectations among Chinese and American Emerging Adults: Commitment, Knowledge, Involvement, and Self-efficacy

Keywords: career-family expectations, emerging adults, China, U.S., gender, self-efficacy, maternal employment

Abstract: Using social learning theory, expectations for combining career and family were examined for Chinese and American emerging adults. Attitudes and beliefs regarding commitment to, knowledge of, involvement in, and career-family self-efficacy were assessed. There were similarities (e.g., intention to marry, age of marriage, maternal employment) and differences (e.g., number of children, parental leave) for the two cohorts. American women and men reported higher career-family self-efficacy than their Chinese counterparts. Interaction effects were found predicting career-family involvement and career-family self-efficacy. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.