title: Career unreadiness in relation to anxiety and authoritarian parenting among undergraduates.
abstract: Career unreadiness, covering career indecision and career myth, is an issue for universities to address. Supposedly, career unreadiness is responsible for the university student's anxiety and partly results from authoritarian parenting during the student's childhood. This is an uncharted concern for this study to clarify. The study surveyed 229 undergraduates in two universities in Hong Kong, China. It employed structural equation modelling to clarify nexuses among career unreadiness, authoritarian parenting and anxiety, after minimising their measurement errors. Career unreadiness mediated the negative effect of authoritarian parenting on anxiety. Nevertheless, authoritarian parenting still maintained a negative direct effect on anxiety, after controlling for career unreadiness. The findings imply that reducing undergraduates' career unreadiness is justifiable to prevent their anxiety. Such a reduction would benefit from neutralising the demands of authoritarian parenting. More fundamentally, diverting authoritarian parenting is advisable.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Social Studies, City University of Hong Kong , Kowloon , Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Chau-Kiu
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Cheung
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Education, University of Macau , Macau , China.
authors.forename: Hoi Yan
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Cheung
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Social Studies, City University of Hong Kong , Kowloon , Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wu
keywords: anxiety; authoritarian parenting; career unreadiness