The influence of subjective social class on employment confidence: the chain mediating effect of perceived social support and self-efficacy

With the persistence of difficult employment, a large number of college students feel anxious and nervous about job hunting. College students with different family economic status have various feelings and performances when faced with employment, possibly due to subjective social class differences. The present study investigated the employment confidence of 611 undergraduates in Chongqing, aimed to ascertain the overall employment confidence of Chinese college students, and tried to analyze how subjective social class works on the employment confidence of college students and its influencing mechanism. The results revealed that the overall employment confidence of college students was positive. There is no significant difference in employment confidence between males and females. The employment confidence of public-funded normal students is higher than that of other college students, and the employment confidence of freshmen is lower than that of juniors and sophomores. What's more, the subjective social class could directly affect employment confidence and also could affect employment confidence by the mediating effect of perceived social support and self-efficacy. Further, subjective social class works on employment confidence through the chained mediating effect of perceived social support and self-efficacy. It suggested that it is worth paying attention to enhancing the perceived social support and self-efficacy of undergraduates to foster their employment confidence because of a relatively stable subjective social class.