This presentation from the OECD Disrupted Futures 2023: International lessons on how schools can best equip students for their working lives conference looks at Understanding impact through quantitative analysis "Access to career supports and the amelioration of disadvantage". Presented by Shuyan Huo, Melissa Tham and Lizzie Knight. Discover the videos and other sessions from the OECD Disrupted Futures 2023 conference at https://www.oecd.org/education/career-readiness/conferences-webinars/disrupted-futures-2023.htm Find out more about our work on Career Readiness https://www.oecd.org/education/career-readiness/

1. Access to career resources
Dr Shuyan Huo, Dr Melissa Tham & Dr Lizzie Knight
Disrupted futures: International lessons on how schools can
best equip students for their working lives
OECD conference May 31st – June 2nd 2023

2. We acknowledge the Ancestors, Elders and families of the Boonwurrung, Wadawurrung and Wurundjeri of
the Kulin who are the Traditional Owners and Custodians of University land. As we share our own
knowledge practices within the University may we pay respect to the deep knowledge embedded within the
Aboriginal community and their ownership of Country.
We acknowledge that the land on which we meet is a place of age-old ceremonies of celebration, initiation
and renewal and that the Kulin people’s living culture has a unique role in the life of this region. VU is
committed to building better relationships and fostering greater understanding between the wider Australian
community and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

3. • The Mitchell Institute for Education
and Health Policy at Victoria
University is one of the country's
leading education and health policy
think tanks and trusted thought
leaders.
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Mitchell Institute

4. • Literature
• Research aims
• Methodology
• Key findings
• Broader implications
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Presentation outline

5. • To investigate potential links between
students’ career planning resources
and their career outcomes
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Research aims

6. • Career satisfaction
• Career interventions
• LSAY literature
• Structural inequalities
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Literature – MT to do

7. Data and methodology
• Data from the 2009 cohort of the Longitudinal Surveys of
Australian Youth (LSAY)
• LSAY is a nationally representative survey program that follows
young Australians over 11 years, from 15 to 25 years of age, as
they move through school to further study, work and beyond.
• Australian Census of Population and Housing (employment and
occupation data of the population)
• Limitation of LSAY ( attrition and potential bias for some
population groups)
• Largely descriptive statistics
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8. Findings: Inequality in access to career planning and support in secondary schools
Students were asked at wave 2 about their
participation in ten different activities for their post
school plans, such as:
• talking to family members or friends,
• speaking with the school’s career advisor or teacher,
looking on-line for career guidance or advice, and
• attending a TAFE or university information session.
The most common career planning related activities
among the 16 year olds are related to family
resources or newt work, such as talking to their
families (96) or their peers (93.3), followed by self-
initiated activities, looking on-line for career
information (79.2).
Consistent with finding from previous researchers
(Dockery et al, 2021), the table on right shows
social patterns in accessing these career planning
resources, as measured by index of economic,
social and cultural status (ESCS).
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Source: LSAY09 wave 2.
* Indicates the estimated ESCS effect is statistically significant at 1% level .
Percentage of 16 year olds who undertake career planning activities
Approach Activity ESCS quartile Wald-ChiSq
All Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Family
resources Talk to parents or family 96.0 94.0 95.6 96.6 97.1 *
Talk to friends or other
students 93.3 91.1 93.4 94.3 93.6
Talk with someone about
their job 66.1 62.3 65.5 66.8 69.0 *
Individual
initiatives
Answer aptitude
questionnaires 64.9 58.8 61.6 66.6 70.4 *
Used internet site/computer
program 79.2 76.5 78.1 79.7 81.7
Institutional
resources
Talk with a career advisor or
teacher 69.2 68.9 69.2 69.9 68.4
Attend university Information
Session 53.9 43.6 51.3 56.7 61.0 *
Attend TAFE Information
Session 25.7 31.1 28.7 24.5 20.4 *
Attend Careers expo/fair 57.2 56.0 57.3 58.2 56.7
Attend an organised visit to
a workplace 50.9 52.9 51.2 49.5 51.0

9. Findings: Variation in career satisfaction by early career planning resources
• Respondents in the LSAY09 cohort reported
their perceived happiness with different aspects
of their life at wave 11, when the survey cohort
were aged 25 years.
• As one component of life satisfaction (see
Stanwick, J & Liu, S-H 2012), career
satisfaction incorporated their reported
happiness with their career prospects, their
future, the money they currently receive and the
work they do.
• The respondents used a scale from zero to ten
where zero means very unhappy and ten
means very happy to indicate how happy you
are with each aspect of their life (Figure on the
right)
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Source: LSAY09 wave 4.
*Wald Chi square tests indicate the estimated ESCS effect is statistically significant at 1% level
Satisfaction with different aspects of their career at age 25 years
7.3
6.7
7.3
7.4
7.8
0 2 4 6 8 10
Mean score
The money you get each week
The work you do
Your career prospects
Your future

10. Findings: Variation in career satisfaction by early career planning resources
• Respondents in the LSAY09 cohort reported
their perceived happiness with different aspects
of their life at wave 11, when the survey cohort
were aged 25 years.
• As one component of life satisfaction (see
Stanwick, J & Liu, S-H 2012), career
satisfaction incorporated their reported
happiness with their career prospects, their
future, the money they currently receive and the
work they do.
• The respondents used a scale from zero to ten
where zero means very unhappy and ten
means very happy to indicate how happy you
are with each aspect of their life (Figure on the
right)
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Source: LSAY09 waves 2 and 11.
*Wald Chi square tests indicate the estimated ESCS effect is statistically significant at 1% level
Mean career satisfaction scores by participation of career planning activities
Career planning activities No Yes Difference in satisfaction
score
(Yes Vs No)
Pairwise t
test
Talked to parents or family 6.4 7.3 0.9 *
Talked to friends or other students 6.8 7.3 0.5 *
Talked to someone in the job 7.1 7.4 0.3 *
Talked to career advisers or teachers 7.1 7.4 0.3 *
Answered aptitude questionnaire 7.2 7.4 0.2 *
Used internet site/computer program 7.3 7.3
Attended Careers expo/fair 7.3 7.3
Attended TAFE information session 7.3 7.3
Attended university information session 7.3 7.3
Attend an organised visit to a workplace 7.3 7.4 0.1

11. Findings: Inequality in access to career planning and support in secondary schools
• OLS Linear regression analysis has been
undertaken to further identify if there are any
independent effects on young people’s career
satisfaction from their early job planning
activities once we control for family SES (the
ESCS index).
• The regression analysis is conducted using
SAS “proc surveyreg” procedure that takes
account the effect of complex survey design
(such as strata, cluster and sample weight).
• Table on the right provides the estimated
marginal effects of each predictor included in
the model.
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Source: LSAY09 waves 2 and 11.
• Indicates the estimated ESCS effect is statistically significant at 1% level.
• Variables indicating whether the respondents have accessed all 10 career planning resources are initially included in the model, but
some of them were dropped from the final model as they are statistically important to explaining the variation of the depend
variable—career satisfaction scores.
Marginal effects of family SES and access to career planning resources in secondary school
Estimated effect on
satisfaction score
t test
Talked to parents or family
0.7 *
Talked to friends or other students
0.4
Talked to someone in the job
0.3 *
Talked to career advisers or teachers
0.2 *
ESCS
0.2 *

12. • Career satisfaction scores vary
significantly according to whether the
respondents had access to four type of
career resources:
• their family,
• someone on the job and
• career practitioner or teacher at school.
• Respondents who had access to these
resources reported a significantly
higher score on their career
satisfaction.
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Implications

13. • Multiple engagements important
• Parents / family the most effective and
career 'adviser' / teacher has some impact
along with talking to someone on the job
• Focus on range of career resources, not
just individual engagement
• Depth of engagement and range in career
development activities
• Effect of family socio-economic status still
present
• Consider more data sources to investigate
further
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Implications

14. • Universal programmatic offer of career
development supports
• Unbiased, high quality career
interventions delivered at scale
• Support for parents / families to have high
quality career interventions
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Wider implications

15. Thank you and questions
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Dr Shuyan Huo, Dr Melissa Tham & Dr Lizzie Knight