Australian youth rank fear of future employment as one of their main concerns. One in four young people, according to the latest national Mission Australia Youth Survey, fear that after they leave high school they will be left to fend for themselves without adequate training programs or employment opportunities in their local community.
But are these fears exacerbated by cultural expectations on the youth of our community? Do parents’ expectations play a role when deciding what tertiary paths our students take?
“The first generation encouraged their kids to become lawyers, doctors,” Bill Kokkalis, a physiotherapist in the Greek community of Melbourne for the past 13 years, tells Neos Kosmos.
“Now the third generation, their parents might be more accepting to move into different fields that were not acceptable the generation before, such as the arts.”
He recalls the advice of his careers counsellor to this day. “He told me, do something that is health related because rain, hail or shine you will always have work.”
So what is it that people, in particular Greek Australians, look for when entering the job market? Is it to find something they’re passionate about? Or is it purely job security one seeks?
Now with the second, third and even fourth generation of Greek Australians, there has been a shift.
“I think they’re becoming closer to the mainstream,” observes Yovanna Adamis, careers counsellor, University of Melbourne.
“They’re making decisions as to – ‘what do I want to do? What fits me?’ They’re not seeing it as the first or second generation of Greeks.”
The majority of Greeks migrating to Australia came from rural areas and generally lacked a formal education, having to opt for unskilled labour in factories, on building sites or on farms.
Melbourne based lawyer and mother of two, Maria Kerhoulas, knows this reality all too well.
“My parents came out here in the late ’60s, early ’70s. When they came here they did the traditional migrant thing in terms of work … they both worked very intensely in factories,” she says.
With many of our grandparents and parents having experienced such difficulties, leaving the patrida and coming to the xenitia, a foreign land, emphasis was placed on working hard to save money and to provide for and educate their children.
“My parents put us through the private schooling system,” says Arthur Keramitsis, an accountant whose parents migrated to Australia in the ’50s. “They were willing to part with a lot of their hard earned money, which was very precious to them, as it was to most migrants.”
Because of this emphasis on education, studies have found second generation Australians to not only be better educated than their overseas born parents, but also better educated than the rest of the population.
Family and culture are two significant factors in young adults deciding which career path they will choose to pursue, with socio-economic position, parents’ level of education and mentality all playing a role.
Whether they decided to follow the traditional nine to five path, as opposed to the unconventional, the general sentiment is one of great support from family, the majority expressing a deep appreciation and recognition for their hard work.
“They just said ‘Look, we’ve given you the opportunity to have a good education – you can either use that to your advantage or do whatever you want with it. We’re here, we’re supportive of you,'” Mrs Kerhoulas recalls.
“All my parents said is that they wanted a good education and to have a good career,” says Mr Keramitsis. “But the decision about which career path was mine.”
Statistics gathered from the 2011 Census report show a significant shift in the types of occupations Greek Australians are choosing to pursue. Although labouring has remained in the top eight from the 1970s through to 2011, there has been a clear move away from physical labour to the intellectually challenging variety.
“I could see that my parents worked hard physically, but mentally weren’t challenged,” Mrs Kerhoulas tells Neos Kosmos. “I’ve been given the opportunity to have an education, how do I use that to my advantage?”
The ABS reported the professional sector as one of Victoria’s largest growing occupations and coincidentally, this was the third highest area of employment for Greek Australians in 2011.
A sociological study from the 1980s found that despite adapting to the Australian way of life, Greek parents were more likely to share a similar value system with that of their children in comparison to those of Anglo-Australian background, the Greek culture perceived to be dominant.
This has been the case with Sydney based interior designer Stacey Kouros.
“Working hard has been instilled in our upbringing for sure,” Ms Kouros tells Neos Kosmos. “We don’t think anything of it…working hard is the normal thing to do.”
Maria Costadopoulos-Hill observes third generation Greek Australians in her thesis as “middle class children with middle class concerns” who had not experienced the struggle and therefore would not have the same commitment to education and achievement.
Ms Adamis observes a similar pattern. “In terms of your personal life choices, you will live your life much more freely and about what you want.”
Twenty-five-year-old fashion designer Penelope Efthimiades is representative of the current generation of Greek Australians. Having studied fashion design at the Whitehouse Institute of Design, she set off to the UK in search of experience and exposure to the world of fashion.
“My parents were always very supportive. They knew that I was good at what I do and they supported that,” she tells Neos Kosmos.”The fashion industry is network based, so that’s what they were worried about. You go to uni and then you leave and where is that job security? There isn’t any. Then I kind of thought, look, I’ll leave it to the stars.”
Although job security is still important for Greek Australians, the perception is that there is now more freedom in finding a career that ‘fits’. Having been socialised in a multicultural society, along with the financial and emotional support of their families, the pressures of family expectation are no longer the priority. As Miss Efthimiades observes,
“Then it was pressure to find a job. Now it’s pressure to find a job that you like. Because if you don’t find a job that you like, you’ll do it half heartedly.”
Australia’s labour market in comparison to that abroad is still going strong and is expected to grow in 2014, with the creation of 215,000 jobs being forecast. Recent reports released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in November showed the unemployment rate at 5.8 per cent – an increase of 0.1. It is undeniable, however, that the nature of the Australian job market has changed, which leads one to ask: what is a safe career path in this day and age?
“There’s no such thing,” says Ms Adamis.
“There’s that myth that I’m going to get a Melbourne degree and I’m going to be employable. It’s not like that anymore.”
With a growing number of Australians going on to tertiary education – a total of 934,110 in 2012, an increase of 5.1 per cent from the previous year – the competition is steadily growing.
“You could be a teacher or a nurse, yes that’s safe … but you still need to compete,” says Ms Adamis. “You need to develop yourself, not just your degree. It’s a totally different world of work they’re entering.”