Raising the next generation of public servants? Parental influence on volunteering behavior and public service career aspirations

Abstract

Purpose – While there is a large body of literature examining the effect public service motivation (PSM) has on both an individual’s career and volunteering decisions, the effects of social learning and parental influences on both volunteerism and selection into public service are relatively unexplored. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between parental volunteering and career choice, PSM, and the volunteering behaviors and career choices of their adult children. Design/methodology/approach – The authors examine data collected from first-year undergraduate students at a large, public university in the southeastern USA to examine, the impact of parents in the development of public service behaviors like volunteering and career choice. Findings – The authors find that parental influence matters in shaping voluntary behavior and career aspirations, but that this social learning is distinct by gender. Originality/value – The authors are unaware of work that directly focusses on parents’ volunteering and career choices, after controlling for PSM, on both the volunteering and public service career decisions of their children.

Why people enter and stay in public service careers: the role of parental socialization and an interest in politics

“…Next to this, the result that parental socializationespecially socialization through fathersis a strong predictor for sector choice (Hypothesis 1) corroborates with the dominant view in the psychological literature (Inkson et al, 2014). In this study, we do not only show that parental socialization influences student's public career aspirations as recently demonstrated by Stritch and Christensen (2016), but we were able to study actual career choices of a representative sample of the Swiss population. For future research it remains an open question if the slowly increasing number of part-time working fathers and full-time working mothers will weaken today's dominant role of fathers in influencing their children's career and strengthen socializing effects through mothers.…”

“…To our knowledge, no research exists examining whether parental socialization influences peoples' likelihood to leave public sector jobs. We contribute to this line of research by using individual-level data from the Swiss household panel (1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014) 1 , which enables us to overcome two limitations of the study conducted by Stritch and Christensen (2016). Firstly, we are able to measure actual career choices rather than relying on undergraduate students' desired careers, which may change as time goes by.…”

Why People Enter and Stay in Public Service Careers: The Role of Parental Socialization and an Interest in Politics

“…Building on existing literature, this study offers several contributions. First, we contribute to the literature on the behavioral effects of PSM by studying the direct effect of an interest in politics on public sector choice (Christensen and Wright, 2011;Vandenabeele, 2008) and the mediating role of an interest in politics in the relationship between parental socialization and public sector choice (Stritch and Christensen, 2016). According to Jensen and Vestergaard 2017, solid empirical evidence of the relationship between PSM and behavior is still limited.…”

“…To our knowledge, no research exists examining whether parental socialization influences peoples' likelihood to leave public sector jobs. We contribute to this line of research by using individual-level data from the Swiss household panel (1999-2014) 1 , which enables us to overcome two limitations of the study conducted by Stritch and Christensen (2016). Firstly, we are able to measure actual career choices rather than relying on undergraduate students' desired careers, which may change as time goes by.…”

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“…The background variables that are included in the study are family income, gender, and type of primary and secondary schools attended. Studies show that a person's family background and socio-economic status are important influential factors of his/her career choice (Stritch and Christensen 2016;Tang, Fouad and Smith 1999). Shumba and Naong (2013) found that 69.2% of their respondents bemoaned either a lack of or inadequate family income as the most common impediment towards realising their chosen career choice.…”