THE INFLUENCE OF PARENTAL OCCUPATION AND GENDER ON STUDENTS' CAREER PREFERENCES

The study investigated the relative influence of parental occupation andgender on students' career preferences. Nine hundred and eighty (980)participants made up of four hundred and ninety (490) males and fourhundred and ninety (490) females student drawn from the total population ofone thousand three hundred and three (1303) full-time (regular)undergraduate students of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Nnamdi AzikiweUniversity, Awka, Anambra State of Nigeria were used for the study. Analysisof data using 2-way-ANOVA statistics was employed to analyze the data. Twohypotheses concerning influences of parental occupation on careerpreference and gender on career preference were tested with result showingthat hypothesis one, parental occupation F(1, 976) = 82.10, P < .05 has asignificant effect on students' career preference and hypothesis two, genderF(1, 976) = 225.90, P < .05 also has a significant effect on students' careerpreference. The implications of the findings were however discussed.