Reimagining the relationship between career transitions and well-being: an insight into graduate higher education journeys in the UK

This chapter investigates how strength of career clarity throughout the university experience affects graduates’ wellbeing after graduation. We use the longitudinal Futuretrack survey, which followed entrants to full-time higher education (HE) in the UK in 2005/06 through their HE experiences and their early post-graduation outcomes. Our approach draws on career construction and subjective well-being frameworks informed by sociological research. We use regression analysis to explore relationships between career clarity about future occupations and job and life satisfaction outcomes. We find that students’ career ideas change over their HE journeys and that high career clarity at the outset is not always positively associated with career exploration activities later on in the HE journey. We also find that while career clarity can be a useful resource to improve students’ wellbeing after graduation, it may not always be able to mitigate the negative impact of structural barriers.