Children’s career dreams are shifting toward influencer work

Children in the U.S. and Norway are increasingly naming influencer and content-creator work when asked what they want to do as adults. The findings point to a gap between school career programs and the online feeds shaping students’ ideas about work, according to Matthew Simoneau, a professor of career and technical education at the University of Wisconsin-Stout Polytechnic.

Simoneau wrote in The Conversation that he and colleagues have spoken since 2021 with elementary, middle and high school students, including children as young as 7. Their forthcoming research covers students in the U.S. and Norway and found that social media ranked behind only family, friends and teachers as an influence on career choices.

More than 60% of middle and high school students surveyed from 2021 to 2024 said they either wanted to become social media influencers or had chosen possible careers based on what they saw online, according to Simoneau. Other commonly named ambitions included professional soccer player, musician and actor.

What researchers asked students

Simoneau said the team modeled part of its approach on a 2018 international study by Education and Employers, which asked 20,000 children ages 7 to 11 about possible future jobs and how they had learned about them.

In Wisconsin, the researchers surveyed more than 80 children ages 7 to 11 and held focus groups with more than 140 middle and high school students about their academic and career plans. In Norway, they interviewed more than 60 children in the same age range.

The prompts were direct. Students were asked to complete a sentence about what they wanted to be when they grew up and to explain how they knew about that job, Simoneau wrote.

Some younger students in both Wisconsin and Norway drew YouTube or TikTok logos or wrote that they wanted to be influencers, without specifying what they would influence. Simoneau said children explained the appeal by saying YouTubers and influencers make money and become famous.

The answers were not limited to online celebrity. Students also named jobs such as wildlife biologist, pilot, engineer and filmmaker, while older students were more likely to list nurse, electrician, teacher, welder, police officer and small-business owner, according to Simoneau.

Schools are competing with daily feeds

Simoneau said schools commonly use online career-interest surveys, career fairs and job-shadowing programs. But he said many students receive limited one-on-one guidance from school counselors.

Within the past decade, 27 states began requiring personalized, multiyear education plans for students as young as 11, according to Simoneau. Wisconsin, for example, adopted a 2015 rule requiring academic and career planning services for students in grades 6 through 12.

Simoneau said Wisconsin students take an online career survey each year, but the programs tend to point students toward traditional jobs such as electrician or accountant rather than newer forms of work such as content creation. He said one reason may be that many school planning tools were built before social media became central to students’ daily lives.

In focus groups, Wisconsin students described school career surveys as repetitive and less useful than conversations with teachers, counselors, relatives and working professionals, according to Simoneau. One 17-year-old who had already been accepted to nursing school said a school survey recommended truck driving and called the test a waste of time.

Simoneau also noted that online exposure can broaden ambitions. He cited a student in a rural town who became interested in marine biology after seeing posts and videos, despite living more than 1,300 miles from the nearest ocean.

The mismatch cuts both ways. Simoneau wrote that many young people see influencer work as a path to income, but the Conversation essay cited data indicating that nearly half of online content creators earn less than $15,000 a year.

This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.