Career Distress Among First-Generation College Students: A Psychology of Working Lens

The present study examined predictors of career distress among a sample of first-generation college students from Türkiye ( N = 417). The structural equation model tested cross-sectionally fit the data well and explained significant variance in career distress. Grounded in the Psychology of Working Theory (Duffy et al., 2016), economic constraints, marginalization experiences, work volition, and future decent work perceptions were found to directly predict career distress. Additionally, work volition was found to significantly mediate the relation of economic constraints and marginalization experiences to future decent work perceptions, and work volition and future decent work perceptions were found to significantly mediate the relation of economic constraints and marginalization experiences to career distress. Invariance testing uncovered that the model fit equally well for freshmen/sophomores compared to juniors/seniors. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.