Previous research suggests that girls have higher occupational aspirations than boys before entering the labor market. We investigate whether this gender gap in occupational aspirations generalizes to secondary school students in Germany and illuminate the possible mechanisms behind these purported gender differences. For this purpose, we used a large and representative sample of ninth graders (N = 10,743) from the German National Educational Panel Study. Adolescents’ occupational aspirations were coded on the International Socio-Economic Index of Occupational Status (ISEI) according to the socioeconomic status of the aspired occupation. Results showed that girls’ occupational aspirations were 6.5 ISEI points higher than boys’ (Cohen’s d = .36). Mediation analyses further revealed that gender differences in vocational interest could explain one-half of the gender gap in occupational aspirations. This suggests that girls’ higher occupational aspirations reflect their specific vocational interests rather than a general striving for higher status and prestige compared to boys.

先前的研究表明，女孩在进入劳动力市场之前比男孩具有更高的职业愿望。我们调查了这种职业期望中的性别差距是否普遍蔓延到德国的中学生，并阐明了这些所谓的性别差异背后的可能机制。为此，我们使用了来自德国国家教育小组研究的九年级学生的大量代表性样本（N = 10,743）。根据职业的社会经济状况，将青少年的职业志向编码在国际职业地位社会经济指标（ISEI）上。结果表明，女孩的职业愿望比男孩高6.5个ISEI点（Cohen's d= 0.36）。调解分析进一步表明，职业兴趣方面的性别差异可以解释职业志向中性别差距的一半。这表明与男孩相比，女孩较高的职业抱负反映了其特定的职业兴趣，而不是总在争取更高地位和声誉的一般努力。