Global economic and socio-political transformations, including recessions, inflation, geopolitical conflicts, weakened social safety nets, and anti-union policies, have intensified uncertainty in contemporary labor markets. These shifts create anticipatory stress about underemployment, typically defined as working below one's education or skill level, outside one's field, in involuntary part-time or temporary jobs, or for inadequate wages (Allan et al., 2017; Feldman, 1996). Anticipating such conditions itself becomes a stressor that heightens psychological distress, particularly for college students preparing to enter the workforce. Despite substantial educational investments, over 40% of recent graduates are underemployed, a pattern evident in the United States, Türkiye, and South Korea.


We developed the Anticipatory Subjective Underemployment Scale (A-SUS) to capture culturally specific and developmental dimensions of anticipated underemployment among college students. In Study 1, an 83-item pool was generated through literature review and interview with vocational psychologists. Using data from 543 U.S. students, exploratory structural equation modeling supported an eight-factor structure, and 24 items were retained to represent underpayment, status, under-hour, over-hour, involuntary temporary work, field underemployment, poverty-wage employment, and perceived overqualification. In Study 2, we examined the factor structure and validity with 503 Korean, 477 U.S., and 496 Turkish students. Across samples, we confirmed the eight-factor correlational factor structure and supported construct validity through correlations with work volition, decent work, social class backgrounds, and marginalization. Incremental validity by using a hierarchical regression analysis demonstrated that the A-SUS predicted career and psychological distress beyond perceptions of future decent work.


This project advances applied psychology by extending underemployment research to anticipatory student experiences and by establishing cross-national generalizability. The A-SUS reflects systemic and cultural influences and underscores how subjective expectations of underemployment shape psychological distress and the future of work.