Work value development from adolescence to adulthood

This study examines three forms of development in work values, or the importance people attach to various rewards of working, including whether young people become more selective in their work values with age, whether work values become more stable with age, and whether work values become more predictive of later work outcomes with age. Drawing on multi-cohort panel data from ages 18 to 30 (the Monitoring the Future senior classes of 1976–1990), we find that the range of job features valued highly narrows with age; that interindividual differences in work values become more stable with age along seven dimensions of work values; and that with age, work values become stronger predictors of both the pay and intrinsic rewards of jobs. Despite significant social change altering the context of vocational development in adolescence and early adulthood, these developmental changes were highly similar across cohorts who were high school seniors between 1976 and 1990.