This paper examines the well-being and career decision-making self-efficacy (CDMSE) of adolescents before and after leaving school, and tests for the changes in these variables as a result of leaving school. While at high school, 309 students were assessed on levels of school achievement, well-being (psychological distress, self-esteem, life satisfaction) and CDMSE. Nine months after leaving school, 168 of these students completed the above surveys and measures of their access to the latent (e.g. social contact, time structure) and manifest (i.e. financial) benefits of employment, and work commitment. At T2, 21% were full-time students, 35% were full-time students who were also working part-time, 22% were employed in full-time jobs, and 21% were in the labour market but not employed full-time. These groupings were differentiated at T2 on aspects of well-being, self-efficacy, and access to the latent and manifest benefits of work, and at T1 on aspects of well-being and confidence. Leaving school improved well-being and confidence for some. One group was disadvantaged by having poorer well-being while at school, which predisposed them to disadvantage in the labour market. Results are discussed in relation to models of well-being and drift/social causation.

Abstract. Theorists have argued the importance of the latent and manifest benefits of employment and their relationship with psychological well-being. However, no one scale has been devised that adequately and reliably measures all five latent and one manifest benefit together. The aims of this study were to develop such a scale that would satisfy standards for psychometric adequacy, and to present evidence for its validity. In the scale development phase, in-depth interviews with 33 unemployed adults and comments from labor market experts were used in the item generation process. In Study 1, 307 unemployed adults were surveyed, and item analysis, interitem and item-total correlations and factor analysis were used to reduce the item pool to a 36-item scale, with six homogeneous and reliable subscales. In Study 2, 250 unemployed adults were surveyed and the scale was subjected to confirmatory factor analysis and tested for associations with psychological distress, neuroticism, and various demographic variables. As a result, a reliable and valid 36-item Latent and Manifest Benefits (LAMB) scale was developed. Implications for use in research are discussed.

This study tests the contributions of the latent functions of employment (Latent Deprivation Model; Jahoda, 1981), the manifest functions of employment (Agency Restriction Model; Fryer 1986) and personality (trait Neuroticism) in accounting for psychological distress in the unemployed. Eighty-one unemployed individuals were assessed on measures of psychological distress (GHQ-12; Goldberg, 1972), the latent functions of employment (Activity, Time Structure, Social Contact, Status, Collective Purpose), Financial Strain, trait Neuroticism, and a measure of Labour MarketSatisfaction. It was shown that the latent functions of employment and Financial Strain were each able to contribute significantly to the prediction of psychological distress over and above that predicted by Neuroticism, which alone also contributed significantly to the prediction of distress. Results are related to the Latent Deprivation and Agency Restriction models of well-being and it is argued that temperament needs to be considered in any explanation of the negative psychological effects of unemployment.

The present study tracked a group of Year 12 students 9 months after leaving high school and sought to identify whether age, gender, data on career maturity, psychological wellbeing, and school achievement reported while still at school could be identified as predictors of occupational status. Data on these variables were able to identify broad postschool occupational groupings of school leavers at Time 2 (T2), whether they were in full-time study, full-time employment, or unemployed/part-time employed. Findings support the assertion that career maturity is a predictor of a successful postschool transition. Discussion focuses on the need to explore movements between the occupational groupings and implications for school-based interventions.Changes in the world of work for adolescents create an imperative to prepare individuals with the necessary skills for more complex and multiple job/ career transitions. Early work experience in a full-time job has been the major stepping stone for young people to adult life since the end of the Second World War. However, significant changes in the nature and structure of the work force during the 1990s meant that this stepping stone was largely removed. The proportion of 15-to 19-year-olds with a full-time job fell from 28% at the beginning of the 1990s to 17% by mid-1996. However, data also show that these 15-to 19-year-olds are all not in full-time education. Although the 1980s saw a significant growth in school completion, peaking in 1992 at 77%, the years since then have illustrated an annual decline, to a low

A u s t r a l i a n J o u r n a l o f C a r e e r D e v e l o p m e n t Vo l u m e 2 1 , N u m b e r 1 , Au t u m n 2 0 1 2