On this page, we will critically discuss how community needs which are determined by socio-economic factors, may influence your choice of a career. The needs in communities result from the socio-economic factors which are: high unemployment rates, poverty, social inequality, and inadequate public service access.
Your career choices is only limited to the number of careers that you are aware of within your community as well as the socio-economic conditions you are in. For example, you wouldn’t choose to become a “User Experience Designer”, if you don’t know if such a career exists and what it entails. For you to grow an interest into becoming a User Experience Designer, you must have heard people talking about how good it is, or seen the works of a User Experience Designer.
Read: Reasons why people don’t participate in community activites
How community needs and Socio-economic factors influence choice of a career
- High unemployment rates – where there is a high unemployment rate, career choices are limited. Why? Because some careers might not even exist, or viewed as insignificant. Therefore, it is easy to choose the popular, yet limitted available careers
- Poverty – where there is povery, career choices are limitted. Poverty makes people desparate to choose the immediately available jobs that offer immediate rewards.
- Social inequalities – Gender as well as racial inequalities significantly influence the career choices. For example, some jobs in certain sectors such as Engineering, may be viewd as jobs for men. While jobs such as Nursing, and Pre-school Teachers may be viewed as for females. Racial inequality may also create the impression that some jobs are for white people, and not for blacks.