Parenting styles and career decision-making among French and Korean adolescents

• Parenting style can significantly impact career decision-making variables.
• Parenting style may differ for students raised in a Western and an Eastern context.
• Korean students reported more career decision difficulties than French students.
• Authoritative parenting style correlated positively with CDSE for French students.
• Authoritarian parenting style correlated positively with CDSE for Korean students.

This study compared the relationship of parenting styles to the career decision-making of adolescents from a Western and an Eastern context. Specifically, 575 French high school students and 613 South Korean high school students completed a questionnaire assessing perceived parenting style, career decision-making difficulties, and career decision self-efficacy. The Korean adolescents had lower career decision self-efficacy beliefs and higher career decision-making difficulties than the French adolescents. The authoritarian parenting style was associated with higher scores on career decision self-efficacy and lower scores on a measure of career decision-making difficulties in the Korean sample while the authoritative parenting style was associated with higher scores on career decision self-efficacy and lower scores on a measure of career decision-making difficulties in the French sample. Results showed significant effects for gender and parenting style on the career decision-making outcomes of both samples.