


































Global Research in Higher Education 
ISSN 2576-196X (Print) ISSN 2576-1951 (Online) 

Vol. 7, No. 3, 2024 

www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/grhe 

115 

 

Original Paper 

The Effect of College Student’ Employment Anxiety on 

Academic Involution: The Chain Mediating Role of Academic 

Stress and Future-oriented Coping 

Xinyu Jia
1
 

1
 Qufu Normal University, Jining, Shandong, China 

 

Received: November 10, 2024  Accepted: November 27, 2024  Online Published: December 5, 2024 

doi:10.22158/grhe.v7n3p115            URL:http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/grhe.v7n3p115 

 

Abstract 

Under the background of China’s social and economic transformation and development, the imbalance 

between supply and demand in the job market and the prominent phenomenon of employment anxiety 

among college students, coupled with the rapid development of higher education, more and more 

students are devoting their energy to academics in order to gain more advantages in the job market, 

which leads to the serious phenomenon of academic involution. Using random sampling, 413 college 

students were selected for the questionnaire survey. By constructing structural equation modeling, 

Bootstrap method was used to test the chain mediating role of academic stress and future orientation 

coping between employment anxiety and academic involution of college students. The results showed 

that employment anxiety and academic stress differed significantly across genders, with females 

scoring significantly higher than males; employment anxiety positively predicted academic involution, 

academic stress and future-oriented coping mediated the chain between college students’ employment 

anxiety and academic involution, with a mediation effect accounting for 52.8% of the total. The results 

of the study revealed that it is necessary to implement the employment support policy for college 

students, solve the problem based on the root cause, help college students establish the awareness of 

future-oriented coping, avoid the employment risk in advance, adjust the level of their academic 

pressure, and develop together in a benign competition. 

Keywords 

college students, employment anxiety, academic involution, academic pressure, future-oriented coping 

 

 

 



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1. Background of the Study 

The phenomenon of college students’ employment anxiety is serious in the context of the new era. In 

recent years, the employment pressure of college students in China has risen sharply, and the 

phenomenon of employment anxiety is serious. Under the influence of the new coronary pneumonia 

epidemic, most students tend to choose more stable jobs, the number of people appearing for public 

office and editorializing has increased dramatically, coupled with the high-speed development of the 

digital economy in the context of China’s economic transformation, many traditional industries have 

been impacted, some of the positions with lower technical content and higher repetitive labor have been 

replaced, and the employment market has an imbalance between supply and demand. At the same time, 

higher education is expanding, the number of college graduates is increasing dramatically. The 

employment situation of college students has become increasingly severe and complicated. The 

difficulty of employment has become a common problem faced by college students, which has led to 

an increase in the phenomenon of employment anxiety among college students. A large number of 

studies have shown that college students, especially college graduates, suffer from generalized 

employment anxiety (He, W. Y., 2022, pp. 115-117; Jiang, C. L., 2008, pp. 131-132; Li, J. P., 2009, pp. 

99-101; Li, L. F., 2016, pp. 104-105). 

Under the state of high-speed development of Chinese society, college students’ academic involution 

has become a major factor affecting the academic development of college students’ groups. Under the 

state of high-speed development of Chinese society, the word “involution” has become a hot word of 

our time, which has been widely used in all sectors of society, especially in the field of higher 

education (Ma, X. Y., 2021, p. 104). Contemporary college students are faced with the employment 

pressure of mismatch between their own conditions and job requirements. Most of them have to join 

the irrational competition of mismatch between payoffs and rewards in order to get more employment 

“chips” than others in the case of limited resources (Ma, X. Y., 2021, p. 104). This has also given rise 

to other hot topics such as “the long shirt of Kong Yi Ji” and the universal examination for graduate 

school. However, for college students, the phenomenon of academic involution is no longer just a 

positive motivation for self-improvement and the pursuit of excellence, but has become a helpless and 

necessary survival strategy under the current environment. Influenced and pushed by those around 

them, students are forced to join this wave of involution. The whole group of college students is caught 

in a cycle of “investing energy-dissatisfied with the result-investing more energy”, in which the 

individual’s efforts are not commensurate with the results obtained (Zhou, X. T., Wei, J. & Chen, C. L., 

2022, pp. 131-140). 

Under the increasingly severe employment situation, it is very important for college students to respond 

to the possibility of their future employment in advance and preventive response. At the same time, 

under the general environment of academic involution, the academic pressure felt by college students 

has also increased. It has been shown that under the support of “involution”, college students’ 



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employment anxiety has increased, which is manifested in a series of academic involution phenomena 

such as brushing credit and grade-point in their behaviors. 

Future-oriented coping and academic pressure are closely related to college students’ academic 

involution. Research on the influence factors of academic involution found that future-oriented coping 

and academic stress significantly and positively predicted the level of students’ academic engagement. 

Future-oriented coping, as a strategy for students to set and plan for their future goals and to take 

specific actions to achieve those goals, plays a role in facilitating students’ learning. Relevant studies 

have shown that students with a clear future orientation tend to show a higher level of learning 

conscientiousness and initiative. They not only clearly recognize the importance of learning, but also 

take the initiative to seek all kinds of learning resources, make reasonable learning plans and put them 

into practice. This enables them to remain calm and focused when facing academic pressure, and thus 

devote more time and energy to their studies. In addition, moderate academic pressure can stimulate 

students’ motivation to study and prompt them to study harder. However, when academic pressure 

exceeds students’ ability to cope with it, a series of negative impacts will occur. Excessive academic 

pressure can cause students to develop emotional problems such as anxiety and depression, which in 

turn reduces their level of academic engagement. 

It can be seen that there is a theoretical connection between college students’ employment problems 

and academic “involution” problems, so what is the mechanism of influence between these? In this 

paper, we will use data to empirically investigate the role of academic stress and future orientation 

coping variables in the influence of employment anxiety on academic involution. 

 

2. Definition of Core Concepts 

This study defines college students’ employment anxiety as the negative psychological state of worry, 

nervousness, and agitation about the possibility of not being able to achieve their original employment 

goals, as well as the adverse cognitive, physiological, and behavioral changes triggered by such a 

psychological state, when college students have not yet secured an employment unit, or when they 

encounter difficulties in the process of job searching due to insufficient psychological preparation. 

There is still no precise definition of academic involution, and most scholars have traced the evolution 

of the meaning of the term “academic involution” back to its roots, leading to the current definition of 

the term “academic involution”. In recent years, the term “academic involution” has appeared 

frequently in the field of higher education, and has even been “out of the loop” to various sectors of 

society to depict the phenomenon of irrational and excessive competition (Chen, X., 2004, pp. 

101-104). As far as the university student group is concerned, the meaning of academic involution 

bound has gone beyond pure personal improvement and become a kind of survival choice forced by 

irrational and excessive competition. This choice means that the whole college student group is caught 

in a cycle of “investing energy-dissatisfied with the result-investing more energy”, accompanied by the 



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spread of a negative emotion closely related to stress and anxiety (Wen, M. & Gan, Y. Q., 2012, p. 

330). In view of this, this study defines college students’ academic involution as the state of internal 

consumption and disordered competition caused by college students’ continuous increase of study 

inputs in the pursuit of goals or opportunities under the situation of give-and-take imbalance. 

The study adopts the World Health Organization’s definition of academic stress, which defines 

academic stress and its manifestations as “a situation in which some students, when faced with an 

academic life event, perceive it as a challenge or a potential threat, which in turn leads to a negative 

psychological response such as anxiety, depression, or fear”. 

Future-oriented coping is a new perspective in the field of coping research, and its concepts and related 

theories are derived from the expansion of the traditional stress-coping theory (Wu, J., 2016, pp. 

432-434). At present, there is no consensus in the academic community on the concept of 

future-oriented coping, Yiqun Gan et al. confirmed from the perspective of empirical research that 

future-oriented coping includes pre-emptive coping and preventive coping, with the former referring to 

the fact that people take certain measures in advance so as to successfully avoid the occurrence of a 

crisis event or to minimize the impacts brought about by the event, and the latter referring to the fact 

that people take measures in advance so as to ensure that their own abilities can still be enhanced in the 

future to achieve the goals that could not be previously accomplished in the future (Aspinwall, L. G. & 

Taylor, S. E., 1997, pp. 417-436).The study adopts the definition of Yiqun Gan. 

 

3. Theoretical Foundations 

3.1 The Theory of Meritocracy 

Meritocracy, some scholars call it “elitism” or “elite rule”, etc. (Schwarzer, R. & Taubert, S., 2002, pp. 

77-80). Its essence is a principle and system, refers to the distribution of political and economic 

resources through the degree of ability and effort (Gan, Y.-Q., Zheng, W. & Wen, Y., 2009, p. 471). 

The meritocracy rule asserts that social and economic rewards should be distributed on the basis of 

individual merit (Spielberger, C. D., 1996). This logic has a certain degree of rationality, and is based 

on the idea that people compete on an equal footing, with the top performers ultimately winning. In the 

field of education, this concept is particularly significant, and the college entrance examination is the 

most prominent form of meritocracy. 

With the popularization of higher education, in order to further enhance their competitiveness, college 

students began to compete for higher level diplomas or degrees. Out of the future employment and job 

market competitiveness considerations, more and more students’ motives are increasingly utilitarian. In 

the case of increasingly fierce competition in education, meritocracy has gradually evolved into a kind 

of “comprehensive strength” competition. The competition in education has become more intense, and 

meritocracy has gradually evolved into a “comprehensive strength” competition (Spielberger, C. D., 

1996). It can be seen that, with the development of society and the popularization of education, the rule 



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of meritocracy brings about an intensification of competition, which in turn leads to the phenomenon of 

academic involution. 

3.2 Self-determination Theory 

Self-determination embodies the potential of individuals to make choices about their experiences. This 

ability stems from a deep understanding of the needs of the self and a comprehensive grasp of 

information about the environment, and it allows the individual to make choices of action based on his 

or her own judgment and will, within a framework of autonomy and freedom, without external 

constraints. 

Adhering to the theoretical foundation of humanism, self-determination theory distinguishes two types 

of human behavior, self-determined behavior and non-self-determined behavior. Self-determined 

behavior is based on the individual’s active cognition and choice, which reflects human initiative and 

self-will; while non-self-determined behavior is expressed as a kind of automaticity, which is often 

directly affected by external factors (Li, J. P., 2009, pp. 99-101).With the continuous change of the 

employment situation, the academic development behavior of college students responds to the changes 

in the external environment showing the phenomenon of “involution”, which is a choice made by 

college students based on individual needs and environmental changes. 

 

4. Literature Review 

First of all, there is a significant correlation between college students’ employment anxiety and 

academic involution. Ma Xueyan’s research shows that under the support of “internalization”, college 

students’ employment anxiety is aggravated, which is manifested in a series of academic involution 

phenomena such as brushing credits, brushing grades and so on (Ma, X. Y., 2021, p. 104). Numerous 

theoretical studies have also pointed out that one of the reasons for aggravating the academic involution 

phenomenon is the increase of employment pressure and the frequent generation of employment 

anxiety phenomenon. 

Secondly, there is a significant correlation between future-oriented coping and employment anxiety and 

academic involution. A series of studies by Gan Yiqun’s team on future-oriented coping found that the 

motivation to pursue success reduces academic burnout and promotes academic engagement through 

the two-phase sequential mechanism of future-oriented coping, and that future-oriented coping has a 

significant effect on job search stress (Li, J. P., 2009, pp. 99-101; Wu, J., 2016, pp. 432-434). Xie et al. 

also found that future orientation negatively predicted academic burnout through positive coping in 

their study on the relationship between future orientation coping and academic burnout (Liang, X. Y., 

2012, pp. 124-127). 

Again, academic stress was significantly correlated with employment anxiety and academic involution. 

Numerous theoretical studies have pointed out that one of the triggers of academic involution in college 

students is the tremendous academic stress felt by students (Aspinwall, L. G. & Taylor, S. E., 1997, pp. 



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417-436; Folkman, S. & Moskowitz, J. T., 2004, pp. 745-774). Zhou Jun’s study showed that college 

students’ academic stress positively predicted academic engagement (Zhou, J., 2022). Fang Yi et al. 

found that a major source of academic stress among college students was employment issues (Fang, Y., 

Dong, Y. Y. & He, W. B., 2019, pp. 1-2). 

First, the existing literature mainly uses theoretical research methods to analyze and elaborate the 

definition, classification, causes, and ways of avoidance of college students' academic involution in 

some detail. Secondly, different scholars have studied the phenomenon of college students’ academic 

“involution” based on different research perspectives, and these studies have special characteristics, 

and these multidimensional perspectives have constructed a more comprehensive research field. 

However, most of the studies regarded college students’ academic involution as a psychological 

phenomenon and analyzed the psychological causes behind it. In addition, existing research shows that 

the phenomenon of college students’ academic involution in China has brought about many negative 

impacts, and it has become a top priority to analyze the nature of the phenomenon and its influencing 

factors as early as possible to solve the problem. 

To summarize, this study will quantitatively investigate college students’ employment anxiety, 

academic stress, future-oriented coping, and academic involution, reveal the mediating mechanism of 

academic stress and future-oriented coping in college students’ employment anxiety and 

future-oriented coping, and better explore the way to solve the phenomenon of college students’ 

employment anxiety and academic involution. 

 

5. Research Design 

5.1 Research Subjects 

In this study, a random sampling method was used to conduct an online questionnaire survey on 450 

freshmen to fourth-year students from several key universities in Shandong Province, Hubei Province, 

and other provinces; 37 invalid questionnaires were excluded, and 413 valid questionnaires were 

obtained, with a recovery rate of 91.7%. Among them, 93 (22.5%) were male and 320 (77.5%) were 

female; 173 (41.9%) were freshmen, 52 (12.6%) were sophomores, 112 (27.1%) were juniors, 73 

(17.7%) were seniors, and 3 (0.7%) were seniors. 

5.2 Research Instruments 

The scales used in this study were all based on a 5-point Likert scale, with points from 1 to 5 

representing a gradual increase in the degree of conformity (1=very poorly conformed, 

2=comparatively poorly conformed, 3=fairly conformed, 4=comparatively conformed, and 5=very well 

conformed), with no reverse scoring items. 

1) Employment anxiety scale. 

This study used the Employment Anxiety Diagnostic Scale developed by Zhang Xiaoqin, which 

consists of 12 questions (e.g., “The thought of employment makes my heart heavy like a stone”), 



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including four dimensions: employment anxiety, interview anxiety, job anxiety, and employment fear. 

2) Academic inventory scale. 

This study used the Personal Academic Inventory Scale for College Students developed by Zhou Xiting, 

Wei Jun, and Chen Chunlin (Zhou, X. T., Wei, J. & Chen, C. L., 2022, pp. 131-140). The scale consists 

of six questions (e.g., “I often compete fiercely with my classmates in academics”) and has a 

unidimensional structure. In this study, the Cronbach’s coefficient of the Academic Inventory Scale is 

0.892, which has good reliability. 

3) Academic stress scale. 

In this study, the academic stress scale from the China College Student Mental Health Screening Scale 

was used. The scale consists of four questions (e.g., “Feeling difficulty in studying”) and has a 

unidimensional structure. In this study, the Cronbach’s coefficient of the Academic Stress Scale was 

0.853, with good reliability. 

4) Future oriented coping scale. 

Based on the proactive coping dimension scale in the Active Coping Scale developed by Esther 

Greenglass et al., six question items were deleted to obtain the Future Oriented Coping Scale used in 

this study. The scale consists of eight questions (e.g., “I am a responsible person”) with a 

unidimensional structure. In this study, the Cronbach’s coefficient of the Future Oriented Coping Scale 

is 0.877, which has good reliability. 

5) KMO test and Bartlett’s Sphericity test. 

KMO test and Bartlett’s Spherical Test were used in this study. The results show that the KMO 

coefficient of the data is 0.938, the KMO value is more than 0.8, Bartlett’s spherical test significance 

p<0.001, the structural validity of the questionnaire is good and suitable for factor analysis. 

5.3 Research Hypotheses 

Through the combing of existing literature, this paper clarifies the relationship between the four 

variables of college students’ employment anxiety, academic introspection, academic pressure, and 

future orientation coping, and this paper proposes the following research hypotheses: 

Hypothesis 1: College students’ employment anxiety has a significant positive effect on academic 

involution. 

Hypothesis 2: College students’ academic stress and future orientation coping have a chain mediating 

role in the effect of employment anxiety on academic introspection. 

In summary, this study constructed a chain mediation model to simultaneously examine the 

relationships among college students’ employment anxiety, academic stress, future orientation coping, 

and academic involution. 



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Figure 1. Diagram of Theoretical Model 

 

6. Research Findings 

6.1 Analysis of Gender Differences in Employment Anxiety, Academic Involvement, Academic Stress, 

and Future Orientation Coping 

Independent samples t-test analysis was used to test whether there are significant differences in 

employment anxiety and its dimensions, academic stress of college students across genders. The results, 

as shown in Table 1, showed that the four dimensions of employment uneasiness (p<0.01), interview 

anxiety (p<0.001), job anxiety (p<0.001), employment fear (p<0.001), and the total score of 

employment anxiety (p<0.001), and academic stress (p<0.01) differed significantly on different genders, 

which was specifically shown in the differences between female students in employment uneasiness, 

interview anxiety, job Anxiety, Employment Fear, Employment Anxiety, and Learning Stress scores 

are significantly higher than those of boys; there is no significant difference between genders in 

Academic Involvement as well as Future Orientation Coping. 

 

Table 1. Differential Results Analysis by Gender 

 Gender M SD t p 

Employment 

Anxiety  

Male  2.99 1.12 
-3.42** 0.001 

Female 3.44 1.11 

Interview Anxiety 
Male  3.12 1.05 

-3.78*** 0 
Female 3.58 1.01 

Job Anxiety 
Male  2.77 1 

-4.45*** 0 
Female 3.29 0.97 



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Employment Fear 
Male  2.92 1.03 

-3.61*** 0 
Female 3.34 0.97 

employment 

anxiety 

Male  2.93 0.97 
-4.24*** 0 

Female 3.4 0.91 

academic 

involution 

Male  2.68 0.88 
-1.83 0.07 

Female 2.86 0.75 

academic pressure 
Male  3.08 0.91 

-2.93** 0.004 
Female 3.37 0.83 

future-oriented 

coping 

Male  3.48 0.76 
-1.48 0.142 

Female 3.61 0.58 

 

6.2 Impact Analysis of Employment Anxiety, Academic Involvement, Academic Stress, and Future 

Orientation Coping 

1) Common method bias test 

In this study, Harman’s one-factor method was used to conduct the common method bias test. The 

results showed that the variance explained by the 1st factor was 35.865%, which was smaller than the 

critical criterion of 40%, indicating that there was no significant common method bias in this study. 

2) Correlation analysis of employment anxiety, academic involution, academic stress, and future 

orientation coping 

The correlation coefficients of the main variables in this study are shown in the table. From the table, it 

can be seen that there is a significant positive correlation between college students’ employment 

anxiety, academic introspection, academic pressure, and future orientation coping: employment anxiety 

and academic introspection show a significant positive correlation, indicating that students with a high 

degree of employment anxiety have a higher level of academic introspection (r=0.50, p<0.01); 

employment anxiety and the mediator variable of academic pressure show a significant positive 

correlation, indicating that students with a high degree of employment anxiety have a high level 

offuture orientation coping (r=0.65, p<0.01); employment anxiety showed a significant positive 

correlation with the mediator variable academic stress, indicating that students with a high level of 

employment anxiety had a high level of academic stress (r=0.44, p<0.01); and there was a significant 

positive correlation between academic introspection and academic stress, indicating that students with a 

high level of academic introspection felt more academic stress (r=0.41p<0.01); academic involution 

and future orientation coping showed a significant positive correlation, indicating that students with a 

high degree of academic involution had a high degree of future orientation coping (r=0.51, p<0.01); 

and academic stress and future orientation coping showed a significant positive correlation, indicating 

that students with a high degree of academic stress had a high degree of future orientation coping 

(r=0.43, p<0.01). 



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Table 2. Correlation Analysis of Employment Anxiety, Academic Involution, Academic Pressure, 

And Future-Oriented Coping 

 

3) Regression analysis among employment anxiety, academic introspection, academic stress, and future 

orientation coping 

Under the premise that the four variables show significant correlation, the explanations and predictions 

of college students’ employment anxiety, academic stress, and future orientation coping on academic 

introspection are further examined by multiple linear regression analysis. In this study, academic 

involution was used as the independent variable, and employment anxiety, academic stress, and future 

orientation coping were analyzed as the dependent variables. 

As shown in Table 3, in the regression model of employment anxiety, academic stress, future 

orientation coping and academic introspection, the VIF value is less than 2, indicating that there is no 

problem of covariance among the independent variables; the adjusted R2 value is 0.330, indicating that 

the predictive power of college students’ employment anxiety, academic stress, and future orientation 

coping on academic introspection reaches 32.2%; and according to the B-value, employment anxiety 

(p<0.01), academic stress (p<0.01), and future orientation coping (p<0.01) significantly and positively 

predicted the level of academic involution of college students. 

 

Table 3. Multiple Linear Regression Results 

 

Unstandardized 

Coefficients 

 

Standardized 

Coefficients t p 

Covariance statistics 

 

 B SE β VIF Tolerance 

(Constant) 0.503 0.190 - 2.645 0.008 - - 

employment 

anxiety 
0.208 0.045 0.251 4.597 0.000 1.830 .546 

academic pressure 0.242 0.050 0.263 4.830 0.000 1.817 .550 

future-oriented 

coping 
0.234 0.057 0.187 4.070 0.000 1.292 .774 

 
employment 

anxiety 

academic 

involution 

academic 

pressure 

future-oriented 

coping 

employment anxiety 1    

academic involution 0.50** 1   

academic pressure 0.65** 0.41** 1  

future-oriented coping 0.44** 0.51** 0.43** 1 



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R
2
 0.335 

Adjusted R
2
 0.330 

 

4) Chain mediation test of academic stress and future-oriented coping between employment anxiety 

and academic involution among college students 

(a) Chain mediation model fitness of academic stress and future orientation coping 

From the correlation results, it can be seen that there is a significant correlation among the four 

components of employment anxiety, academic involution, academic stress, and future orientation 

coping among college students. Based on the research hypotheses, this study used Amos 24.0 to 

construct a structural equation model to test the chain-mediated effects of future orientation coping and 

academic stress between college students' employment anxiety and academic engagement 

internalization. As shown in Figure 2, the structural equation model was established by taking college 

students’ employment anxiety as a predictor variable, academic engagement internalization as a 

calibration variable, and academic stress and future orientation coping as mediator variables. The fit 

indexes are shown in Table 4, the value of 2/df is 2.974, which is less than the critical value of 5; the 

value of RMSEA is 0.069, which is less than the critical value of 0.08; the values of IFI, TLI, CFI are 

0.929, 0.919, 0.929, respectively, which are all greater than the critical value of 0.9. In summary, the 

structural equation model established in this study has a good fit degree. 

 

Table 4. Chain Mediation Model Fit Metrics 

Fitting metrics 
2
/df RMSEA IFI TLI CFI 

 2.974 0.069 0.929 0.919 0.929 

 

(b) Chain-mediated model path analysis of academic stress and future-oriented coping 

As can be seen from Figure 2, employment anxiety significantly and positively predicts academic stress 

(β=0.72, p<0.001) and future orientation coping (β=0.26, p<0.001), academic stress significantly and 

positively predicts future orientation coping (β=0.29, p<0.001), and future orientation coping positively 

and positively predicts academic intraprogression (β=0.19, p<0.001), which indicates that higher levels 

of employment anxiety among college students are associated with higher levels of academic stress, 

which in turn leads to higher levels of future orientation coping and ultimately higher levels of 

academic involution. 



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Figure 2. Chain Mediated Role Model of Academic Stress and Future Orientation Coping 

 

(c) Mediating effect test of academic stress and future-oriented coping 

Using Bootstrap to test the significance of the mediating effect, the chain mediating role model diagram 

was constructed with college students’ employment anxiety as the independent variable, academic 

investment involution as the dependent variable, and academic stress and future orientation coping as 

the mediating variables. According to the operation procedure, the sample size is set to 5000, the 

confidence interval is 95%, and the calculation is executed. The results are shown in Table 5, first, the 

total effect value of college students’ employment anxiety on academic involution is 0.432, with a 

Bias-corrected 95% confidence interval of 0.349 to 0.528, not including 0, indicating that the total 

effect of college students’ employment anxiety and academic engagement involution is significant. 

Second, after controlling for the effects of the two mediating variables of academic stress and future 

orientation coping, the value of the direct effect of college students’ employment anxiety on the 

internalization of academic engagement was 0.204, with a Bias-corrected 95% confidence interval of 

0.089 to 0.321, not including 0, indicating that there was a significant positive direct effect of college 

students’ employment anxiety on the internalization of academic engagement. Finally, the mediating 

effect value of academic stress between college students’ employment anxiety and academic involution 

was 0.157, with a Bias-corrected 95% confidence interval of 0.060 to 0.261, not including 0, indicating 

that academic stress played a positive and significant part of the mediating effect between employment 

anxiety and academic involution; and the mediating effect value of future-oriented coping between 

college students’ employment anxiety and academic involution was 0.040, with an intermediate effect 

value of 0.040, with an intermediate effect value of 0.321, indicating that the positive direct effect of 

college students’ employment anxiety and academic involution was significant. Effect value is 0.040, 

with a Bias-corrected 95% confidence interval of 0.012 to 0.085, not including 0, indicating that 



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future-oriented coping positively and significantly partially mediates the effect between employment 

anxiety and academic involution; the chained mediation effect value of academic stress and 

future-oriented coping between employment anxiety and academic involution is 0.031, with a 

Bias-corrected 95% confidence interval of 0.012 to 0.067, not including 0, indicating a significant 

positive chain mediated effect of academic stress and future orientation coping, and the research 

hypothesis 2 is valid. The total indirect effect value was 0.228, accounting for 52.8% of the total effect, 

respectively. In summary, academic stress and future orientation coping have a chain-mediated effect 

between college students’ employment anxiety and internalization of academic engagement, acting as 

partial mediators. 

 

Table 5. Chained Mediation Effect Test Table for Academic Pressure and Future-Oriented 

Coping 

 Path ES SE 

Bias—corrected 

95%CI 
Effect 

ratio 
Lower Upper 

Direct 

effect 

employment 

anxiety-academic 

involution 

0.204 0.059 0.089 0.321 47.20% 

Indirect 

employment anxiety－

academic pressure－

academic involution 

0.157 0.051 0.06 0.261 36.40% 

effect 

employment anxiety－

future-oriented coping－

academic involution 

0.04 0.018 0.012 0.085 9.20% 

 

employment anxiety－

academic pressure－

future-oriented coping－

academic involution 

0.031 0.013 0.012 0.067 7.20% 

 Total indirect effect 0.228 0.052 0.131 0.336 52.80% 

Total 

effect 

employment 

anxiety-academic 

involution 

0.432 0.045 0.349 0.528  

 

 

 

 



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7. Results and Discussion 

This study took 413 undergraduate students from several provinces, including Shandong Province and 

Hubei Province, as research subjects to explore the chain mediating role of academic stress and future 

orientation coping in the effect of employment anxiety on academic involution. By analyzing and 

validating the data, this study mainly obtains the following three conclusions and further analyzes the 

reasons for the possibility of the research conclusions. 

7.1 College Students’ Employment Anxiety and Academic Stress Are Significantly Different By Gender 

It is found that there are significant differences in employment anxiety and academics among college 

students of different genders. 

First, on different genders, female students scored significantly higher than male students in 

employment anxiety, which is consistent with the findings of Zhang Yuzhu (Wen, M. & Gan, Y. Q., 

2012, p. 330). Since the reform and opening up, China has made remarkable achievements in 

promoting women’s employment, however, women still face many challenges in the job market, which 

make women need to cross higher thresholds in employment and suffer greater employment anxiety 

compared with men. 

First of all, one of the major obstacles is the constraints of traditional attitudes. In traditional societal 

attitudes, it is generally believed that women should be more responsible for their families rather than 

fully engaging in the workplace or their studies. This notion not only restricts women’s career and 

academic choices, but also increases their pressure in balancing family and career or studies. Secondly, 

women tend to be under more pressure of childbearing and family responsibilities. During childbearing 

and breastfeeding, they need to devote a lot of time and energy to taking care of their children and 

families, which will undoubtedly have a negative impact on their employment and studies. Lastly, 

gender discrimination is also an important obstacle that women face in workplace promotion and career 

development. Despite their outstanding performance at work, women often find it difficult to get the 

same opportunities for promotion and pay rises as men. This unfair treatment makes women feel 

frustrated and lost, further aggravating their employment pressure. 

Secondly, on different genders, female students scored significantly higher than male students on 

academic stress, which is consistent with Deng Qi’s findings (Spielberger, C. D., 1996). In their 

academic pursuits, women are not only committed to achieving excellent grades as a way to 

demonstrate their personal abilities and values, but also to deal with the high expectations from their 

families and society. Given the relatively limited employment opportunities for women in the 

workplace, they often need to strive for equal employment opportunities with men through higher 

academic qualifications. Therefore, women not only have to demonstrate academic excellence, but also 

have to face additional social expectations and employment challenges. 

 

 



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7.2 Employment Anxiety Is a Significant Positive Predictor of Academic Introspection 

First, employment anxiety positively predicts the level of academic introspection of college students. 

One of the most important factors affecting academic engagement is employment (Yang, X. Q., Xu, Y. 

Y. & Wang, Y., 2022, pp. 118-123), and in order to alleviate this anxiety and gain an advantage in the 

competition for employment, students join the competition for “internalization”. The expansion of 

colleges and universities has led to an increase in the number of graduates from colleges and 

universities, and an increase in the number of graduate students, while at the same time the threshold of 

the job market has also been raised, from college to bachelor’s degree to master’s degree, and even to 

doctoral degree. The depreciation of academic qualifications brought about by the expansion of 

colleges and universities, the increase in the pressure of employment competition, and the high 

employment expectations of individuals can lead to employment anxiety and other psychological 

problems, resulting in the phenomenon of employment anxiety among college students, which also 

affects the positioning of college students and their planning for the future, and exacerbates the 

phenomenon of academic involution (Zhao, G. N., 2014, p. 117). 

7.3 Academic Stress and Future-Oriented Coping Have a Chain Mediating Role in the Effects of 

Employment Anxiety on Academic Involution 

Academic stress and future-oriented coping have a chain mediating role in the effect of employment 

anxiety on academic involution, i.e., students with high levels of employment anxiety feel higher levels 

of academic stress and further increase their levels of future-oriented coping, which ultimately leads to 

an increase in the prevalence of the phenomenon of academic involution. Employment anxiety is a kind 

of disturbing behavior and emotion generated by job search. Numerous studies in China have shown 

that employment stress aggravates students’ academic stress (Hu, Y. H. & Liu, H. M., 2020, pp. 

100-106). Students with a high level of academic stress, driven by pressure, tend to save for a rainy day 

and act in advance for more advantages in their future job market, and the degree of future-oriented 

coping, as an individual’s proactive coping oriented toward the stressor, deepens accordingly. It has 

been shown that future-oriented coping will increase the level of academic engagement (Wen, M. & 

Gan, Y. Q., 2012, p. 330), and at the undergraduate level, the early coping with employment 

uncertainty is more reflected in the academic aspect, and the deepening of the degree of future-oriented 

coping will increase the degree of students’ academic involution. Therefore, college students with 

higher levels of employment anxiety tend to increase their advance preparation for future uncertainty 

events in order to improve their competitiveness in the job market during college, driven by higher 

academic pressure, which is more reflected in academic involution at the undergraduate level. 

 

 

 

 



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8. Insights and Recommendations 

8.1 Implementing Employment Support Policies and Solving Problems Based on Root Causes 

The employment of college graduates is related to people’s well-being, economic development and the 

future of the country. In recent years, the government has introduced employment subsidies, job 

expansion subsidies, social security subsidies and other policies to address the difficulty of college 

graduates in finding employment, as well as the implementation of grassroots programs such as the 

“Three Supports and One Support” program. However, as the total number of college graduates in 

China continues to expand, and the pressure on the total employment of college graduates coexists with 

structural contradictions, the problem of difficult employment for college students has always been in 

an urgent position. In this regard, the government should implement employment assistance policies, 

establish a convenient and efficient exchange platform for enterprises, schools and students, and 

conduct legal and compliant employment exchange information sharing through network information 

platforms. At the same time, it should strengthen the control of the employment market, maintain the 

fairness and order of the employment market, and crack down on “black intermediaries” and other 

undesirable problems. Only in a fair, orderly and healthy employment environment can college 

students really give full play to their talents and potentials and realize the value of their lives. By 

solving the fundamental problem of employment, we can reduce the behavior of college students to get 

more weight in the job market and reduce the unnecessary consumption caused by internal scrolling. 

8.2 Establishing a Sense of Future Response and Rational Planning of Academic Employment 

First of all, college students should analyze themselves, give themselves a clear positioning, rational 

planning of their own life, and at the same time set up a correct career concept, have a full 

understanding of each occupation, according to the general environment of the career planning, the 

establishment of a compatible with their own, in response to the changes in the external environment of 

the academic as well as employment planning, to avoid getting caught in the wave of involution. In this 

process, schools need to strengthen the construction of career guidance teachers, provide college 

students with employment information, help students understand the job market and employment 

situation, guide students to discover their strengths and interests, and guide them to set up the correct 

concept of employment. At the same time, diversified teaching activities are carried out to cultivate 

students’ comprehensive quality and innovation ability, so that they can have more competitiveness. 

Secondly, college students themselves need to maintain a strong internal drive, focus on 

self-improvement, maintain an upward trend, and be firm on their own path, so as to avoid being 

“swept away”. At the same time, they should not stick to the traditional thinking, and participate in a 

variety of activities in order to explore more fields in this ever-changing society. 

 

 

 



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8.3 Adjusting the Level of Academic Pressure and Healthy Competition for Common Development 

Facing the severe employment environment as well as the phenomenon of involution, college students 

should maintain their determination, reduce the unnecessary internal conflict brought by involution, 

accurately recognize the gap between ideals and realities, face up to this gap instead of escaping or 

blindly pursuing unrealistic goals, actively adjust their mindset, and face all kinds of challenges and 

difficulties with a calm and rational attitude. On the basis of completing academic tasks, they should 

participate in more social practice activities, accumulate practical experience, better understand social 

needs and career development trends, and gradually clarify their career direction accordingly, so as to 

be fully prepared for future employment. At the same time, college students should also actively seek 

new tracks, not limited to the traditional employment field, and dare to try new fields and industries. In 

this fast-changing era, new careers and positions are constantly emerging, and college students should 

keep a keen insight to seize the opportunities and challenge themselves. Most importantly, college 

students should put themselves in a larger context, focusing not only on their own development, but 

also on the development of society and the country as a whole. Involvement is not the only way out, 

keep a positive mindset, improve their own hard power, and open up a new track with personal 

characteristics is the way to crack involvement. 

 

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