Fate Talk and Bounded Career Agency among Chinese University Students ——A Conceptual Framework

Jia Wang

Guangdong University of Business and Technology

Abstract：

Educational and career decisions among Chinese university students are shaped by unequal family resources, institutional access, regional opportunities, and labour-market uncertainty. Students may interpret these conditions through fate talk, but such language does not necessarily signal passive fatalism. This conceptual paper connects negotiable fate with career adaptability, career decision-making self-efficacy, and the psychology of working theory. It proposes a recursive framework in which interpretations of constraint may lead to withdrawal or bounded career agency, defined as recognising structural limits while identifying feasible action. This action can build capabilities and relationships, but opportunity conversion depends on informational, relational, and material support. Outcomes and recurring barriers subsequently reshape how students interpret fate. Drawing on a focused, non-systematic corpus, the paper uses a reverse reading of a Chinese folk sequence as a sensitising heuristic, not a validated taxonomy or causal law. The framework yields four propositions for future research and supports culturally responsive, equity-oriented career education.

Key Words：

bounded career agency; career adaptability; career decision-making self-efficacy; Chinese university students; fate talk; higher education