From Vocational Training to Academic Degrees: How Young Females Forge Educational and Career Trajectories in a Shifting Landscape

As part of China's efforts to expand access to higher education, an increasing number of students are transitioning from vocational training programmes to pursue undergraduate degrees. This study investigates the decision-making process of Chinese young women under the policy-driven transition, as well as the subsequent impact of the educational mobility on their career expectations. Drawing on Eccles and Wigfield’s expectancy-value theory of achievement-related choices, the research examines how structural constraints intersect with individual perceived utility, attainment value, and self-efficacy. Through in-depth interviews with 30 Chinese females aged 18–25 undergoing or contemplating the educational transition, the study identified how the subjective, social, and institutional factors that shape their educational pathways and career expectations. Preliminary findings reveal that considerations around academic self-efficacy, perceived utility of an undergraduate degree, and social influences from family and societies all play important roles in these students' choices. However, gendered expectations around “appropriate” careers and the devaluation of vocational skills in high-status sectors complicate their pathways. This research contributes to scholarship on educational stratification and gender by foregrounding the lived experiences of young women at the intersection of policy flux and societal change, offering theoretical insights into how macro-level reforms are reinterpreted through micro-level agency.