"occupational planning" is a correct phrase that can be used in written English.
It is typically used when referring to the process of determining, defining and selecting a career or vocation. For example: "Sam had difficulty deciding on a career path, so he enlisted a career counselor to help him with occupational planning."
What were their occupational plans at age 30?
And we coded up all these verbatim responses to occupational plans.
However, the occupational plans of high school seniors are strong predictors of initial college major selection, a finding that is revealed only when occupational plans are measured with sufficient detail, here by using the verbatim responses of students.
We also find that the association between occupational plans and college major selection is not attributable to work family orientation or academic preparation.
In particular, Weeden and her team are interested in understanding the gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupational plans and college major completion.
What we learned, though, is that young adults from high-income families are more likely to be able to articulate an occupational plan.
We discuss the implications of the predictive power of occupational plans formed in adolescence for understanding sex segregation and for policies intended to create a gender-balanced STEM and doctoral-level medical workforce.
And occupational plans are the strongest predictor of majoring in STEM in college even stronger than grades, test scores, high school mathematics and science courses, how students self-assess their math ability, or how much they value work versus family.
Cornell University professor Kim Weeden shows that teenagers' occupational plans are strongly associated with the type of community in which they attend school and the opportunity structure of the local labor market.
Finally, we find gender differences in the associations between occupational plans and college major selection that are consistent with prior research on STEM attrition, as well as with the claim that attrition also affects the selection of majors that are gateways into doctoral-track medicine.
