Abstract
Anxiety represents a primary global health concern. The divide between urban and rural areas has caused development gaps, leading to notable differences in career choice anxiety levels between these regions in Jawa Timur. However, there is a shortage of comprehensive national research analyzing these disparities among VHS students. This study involved 5.000 VHS students from Jawa Timur province. The study applied multiple regression modeling to explore determinants of career choice anxiety among vocational high school students across urban and rural districts in Jawa Timur. In addition, a partitioning technique was utilized to assess how distinct variables contributed to differences in anxiety levels between students from urban and rural backgrounds. The general linear model shows that differences in career choice anxiety among VHS students in rural and urban Jawa Timur are reflected in interpersonal networks (personal ability, self-exploration, decision stress), interpersonal network levels (VEC, family communication), policy levels (public insurance coverage), community levels (amount of information, monthly per capita family income) and institutional levels (environmental exploration, career guidance services). The Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition reveals that 79.48% of the disparity in anxiety between city and village students in Jawa Timur can be explained, with the level of intrapersonal networks being the key predictor. The incidence of career choice anxiety is disproportionately higher in metropolitan areas relative to rural regions. Consequently, it is imperative for policymakers to identify the causal drivers of this disparity in order to design effective interventions that mitigate psychological health inequities between urban and rural communities.
Keywords: Career Anxiety, Career Exploration, Commitment to Career Choice, Student Vocational, Urban-Rural Disparities.