Career-Related Filial Piety and Career Adaptability in Hong Kong University Students

According to career construction theory, cultural beliefs represent a social construct that may shape an individual’s career path. In Chinese society, the Confucian concept of filial piety is one such influential belief. More specifically, reciprocal filial piety involves mutually supportive processes between parents and their offspring, whereas authoritarian filial piety is characterized by the suppression of the offspring’s own wishes to comply with those of their parents. The authors examined the extent to which Hong Kong undergraduate students (N = 522) possess dual career-related filial piety and how it relates to their career adaptability during the school-to-work transition. Results indicated that career-related reciprocal filial piety was regarded as important and was associated with all career adaptability dimensions, whereas career-related authoritarian filial piety was not. The possible complex effect of dual career-related filial piety on career adaptability deserves attention from career counselors and researchers.