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.