Life satisfaction is described as a subjective component of quality of life. It is considered as the cognitive dimension of subjective well-being, that is the conscious cognitive judgment of own life in relation to a series of personally set criteria (Schalock & Felce, 2004). Although life satisfaction has been studied extensively in adults (Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999) and less extensively in adolescence (Huebner, Suldo, Smith, & McKnight, 2004), it has been found that having a positive cognitive judgment of own life is positively related to better emotional, social, and behavioral health (Sun & Shek, 2013), enhanced social relationships, and increased academic engagement and achievement (Lewis, Huebner, Malone, & Valois, 2011; Suldo, Thalji, & Ferron, 2011). The relevance of life satisfaction during adolescence has been shown by longitudinal research (e.g. Suldo & Huebner, 2004) founding that life satisfaction negatively influences future externalizing behaviors in the face of stressful life events and therefore operates as a buffer against some effects of adverse life events.

۲٫ Career adaptability

Career adaptability is a self-regulatory, transactional, and flexible competency for coping with developmental tasks, present and future changes in the career context, promoting adjustment and successful transition across the career lifespan (Rossier, 2015; Rudolph, Lavigne, & Zacher, 2017). It is characterized by four Cs: Concern is the individual ability to connect past with present and to be positively projected toward the future. Control is the tendency to think of the future as manageable. Curiosity refers to the exploration of possible selves and social opportunities. Finally, Confidence allows for standing by one’s own aspirations and objectives despite difficulties (Savickas & Porfeli, 2012). Overall, career adaptability promotes individual’s ability to tolerate and handle uncertainty and to cope with and organize educational and career future-fears (Rossier, 2015). As found by Pouyaud, Vignoli, Dosnon, and Lallemand (2012) career adaptability is negatively correlated with fear of failing in one’s academic or professional career and positively correlated with school motivation, suggesting that adolescents with higher levels of career adaptability perceive themselves as more engaged with their future and less afraid to fail in achieving their future goals. A meta-analysis by Rudolph et al. (2017), based on the career construction model of adaptation (Savickas & Porfeli, 2012), and using 90 studies across several countries, found that career adaptability, directly and indirectly through the role of adapting responses (adaptive behaviors and beliefs to handle career development tasks and changing career conditions), predicted positive career related outcomes (adapting results). These adapting results refer for example to career decidedness (Ginevra, Pallini, Vecchio, Nota, & Soresi, 2016), broader range of career interests and fewer internal and external barriers (Soresi, Nota, & Ferrari, 2012), and subjective wellbeing (Rudolph et al., 2017). Regarding this latter, Santilli, Marcionetti, Rochat, Rossier, and Nota (2016) provided support of the relationship between career adaptability and life satisfaction, that was partially mediated by a positive orientation toward future (hope and optimism) in 12–۱۶ years old Italian adolescents and fully mediated in Swiss adolescents. Moreover, Buyukgoze-Kavas, Duffy, and Douglass (2015) observed that all four dimensions of career adaptability correlated with life satisfaction; and career concern and control linked to life satisfaction through the role of sense of control in career decision making and life meaning.