Seeking the Balance: Risks, Choices and Life Priorities in the Life-Patterns Project, 1998-1999. Working Paper 19.

This paper provides an update on the 1998 findings from an Australian longitudinal study begun in 1991 and titled the Life-Patterns Project. Based on 1,430 returns of the questionnaire and interviews of a sub-sample of 100, it examines implications of patterns beginning to emerge as participants enter their mid-twenties and reassess their priorities. Chapter 1, a summary of 1998 results, reports that 67 percent were in full-time jobs, 48 percent were in their preferred career area, and having a steady job was participants' number-one priority. Chapter 2, on diversity of patterns, discusses development of a typology of life patterns with these five focuses: vocational, occupational, contextual, altered, and mixed. Case studies illustrate the features of each pattern. The chapter shows education is not the only factor determining how successful a young person is upon entering the work force. The relationship among control, choice, and risk at various points on the "continuum of control" is discussed. Chapter 3 focuses on the multi-dimensional lives of participants, with varying priorities given to work and life. Chapter 4 reports these findings regarding career and personal fulfillment: for many participants, the disjuncture between educational achievement and career prospects has come as a surprise; and participants wanted to achieve and maintain a regular job in which they can improve their career prospects, but not at the cost of their personal relationships. (Contains 18 references.) (YLB)