Employment Anxiety among College Students During COVID-19: A Systematic Review

Abstract

After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global economy has been severely affected, and college students in various countries are facing greater challenges in employment. The purpose of this study is to integrate existing research on employment anxiety among college students during COVID-19 by reviewing what researchers have already investigated. This systematic review searched two databases in English (Web of Science and Scopus) and two databases in Chinese (VIP database of Chinese technical journals, China National Knowledge Infrastructure). The search time is from the time of database creation to January 1, 2023. Of the 1064 retrieved records, a total of 19 studies  were included. During the pandemic period, more than most college students had employment anxiety, and the anxiety level was moderately high. In areas that were more severely affected by the pandemic, the proportion of college students with employment anxiety was greater. Obviously, the employment anxiety of graduates is greater than that of non-graduates. Compared with males, females are more likely to have employment anxiety. The employment anxiety of college students from medical and normal backgrounds is more prominent. Through the analysis of factors affecting employment anxiety, it is found that universities and families should provide employment support and psychological assistance for college students, such as career planning, enhancing psychological resilience, self-efficacy, professional sense of mission, reducing perfectionism, etc. Social support is an important factor that can help relieve college students' employment anxiety.