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Abstract Along with the popularization of higher education as well as the diversification of employment options, postgraduates confront increasingly severe challenges in the labor market. During the process of making career decisions, the perception of potential career barriers and corresponding psychological dilemmas make it difficult for postgraduates to achieve long-term career development. This paper constructs an integrated three-dimensional analysis model of career barrier perception, while introducing the diagnostic instrument for depression (PHQ-9), so as to comprehensively assess the composition, impact, and specific impact mechanisms of postgraduates’ career barrier perception.
Building upon data from a survey of postgraduates’ psychological status, this research examines how career barrier perception influences postgraduates’ depressive tendency with the application of ordered Logit regression, inter-group regression coefficient difference test, and mediation effect test. The results indicate that the three sources of career barriers perception, namely low self-efficacy, weak expectations of future development, and insufficient support from the school environment, are all significantly positively correlated to the probability of postgraduates experiencing depression. Comparing the influence of three diverse sources, the analysis suggests that the impact of long-term expectations over future development is significantly higher than that of current self-efficacy and environmental assistance factors. The above-mentioned effects also reveal remarkable differences across different training models, majors, and genders. In addition, the results of the mechanism analysis reveal that mentor guidance and peer support exert significant influence on moderating the negative impact of career barriers perception and shaping the positive psychological resilience of postgraduates. Especially when support from the school environment is limited, the perception of career barriers is significantly amplified, which increases the likelihood of depressive symptoms among postgraduates. However, with the presence of mentor guidance and peer support, the negative impact of career barrier perception on depressive tendencies can be effectively alleviated.
In the theoretical aspects, this paper has three main contributions as follows. First, it constructs an integrated analytical model for understanding career barrier perception and reveals how diverse sources of perception exert heterogeneous effects on postgraduates’ depressive tendency. Although the discussion on career barrier perception has drawn attention from scholars over recent years, there exists no general consensus on its measurement. On the basis of the existing research, this paper proposes a three-dimensional analytical framework that takes into account the interactions across individuals and environment, which goes beyond the traditional binary perspectives of “subjective-objective” or “structural-initiative”. Second, by introducing clinical diagnostic instruments for depression to portray postgraduates’ psychological status, it overcomes the deficiencies of the existing research in terms of measurement methods and index selections. Accordingly, specific impact mechanisms of career barriers perception are further examined, revealing the moderating role of social interaction factors represented by mentors’ and peers’ support. Third, an empirical analysis based on large-sample data remedies existing research’s limitations in solely stressing theoretical discourses and ignoring the heterogeneities between diverse student groups, providing empirical evidence as well as targeted references for promoting the career development of highly educated talents.
From the practical perspective, the empirical findings of this paper further clarify the main challenges for postgraduates in achieving long-term career development and facilitate the tasks of higher education in terms of employment training.
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Published: 01 August 2025
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