DOI:10.6129/CJP.201806_60(2).0003
Chinese Journal of Psychology 2018, Vol.60, No.2, 125-149
Career Crisis and Adaptation in Middle Adulthood
Hsiang-Ju Chen（Department of Adult and Continuing Education, National Taiwan Normal University）；Chingju Grace Chen（Department of Family and Child Ecology, Michigan State University）
Abstract
As the baby boomers start to step into the retirement and the birth rate has been decreasing, the shortage in the labor force is a significant issue around the world. The postponement of retirement has become one of the strategies to compensate the shortage of the labor force. The midlife employees are facing the challenges to extend their career to cope with this trend. The purpose of the study is to explore the phenomena of careers crisis and the actions taken by the midlife professionals to solve the crisis. Guided by Erikson’s (1959, 1994; Erikson, Erikson, & Kivnick, 1994/2000) psychosocial development theory and P. B. Baltes’ (1987, 1997) selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) strategies, this phenomenological research study interviewed nine adults aged between 35–50 to understand their career development when encountered crisis. The research findings show that the participants’ career development stages are similar to Erikson’s psychosocial developmental stages, and the career crisis is the turning point to the next psychosocial developmental stage. For those participants who have successfully completed school age psychosocial development stage, their career crisis themes are related to personal abilities. For those participants who have successfully completed adolescence psychosocial development, their career crisis themes are related to the relations between self and the profession. The research findings conclude three actions for adaptation of the career crisis: looking for another job, learning and seeking help from other professionals, which corresponding to the three strategies: loss-based selection, optimization, and compensation, respectively. Each of the participants applied at least two or more actions to cope with the career crisis, but only the actions that are optimization- or compensation-oriented would help to move into the next psychosocial development stage. The study findings support Erikson’s crisis hypothesis in the career psychosocial development and found three adaptive actions to optimize or to compensate the participants’ crisis-related issues at the work. Implications for the career counselors, adult learning educators, and human resource (HR) division are discussed.
Keywords: SOC strategies, psychosocial development theory, career crisis
