THE CAREER INTERESTS AND ASPIRATIONS OF GAY MEN - HOW SEX-ROLE ORIENTATION IS RELATED

This study explored the career interests and aspirations of gay men and how sex-role orientation is related to them. Sixty-three gay and 60 heterosexual male participants were recruited through networking and advertisements. The two groups were of equivalent age, socioeconomic background, race, student status, and educational level. They completed the Self-Directed Search (Holland, 1985a) assessing career interests, a Lifestyle Questionnaire assessing career aspirations and sexual orientation, and the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (Bem, 1978) assessing sex-role orientation. MANOVAs were employed to examine the differences between gay and heterosexual men in career interests, aspirations, and sex roles. Finally, a MANCOVA was computed with all the career variables significantly related to sexual orientation as dependent variables while sex-role scores were treated as covariates. Results suggested that, compared to heterosexual men, gay men's interests were less Realistic and Investigative but were more Artistic and Social. Gay men's career aspirations were also less traditional for males. Bem Femininity and Masculinity scores were not significant covariates for most of the career variables. Implications for counseling and future research are discussed. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.