Abstract

This research determined the influence of parents and their parenting styles on children’s career decisions and romantic relationship of LGBTQ students at Bestlink College of the Philippines. Particularly fourth- year students, since they are about to enter the larger world outside school and face important life decisions regarding their careers. This study uses a quantitative correlational research design. Spearman’s rho correlation was used to determine the strength and direction of the relationship between the variables, while regression analysis was utilized to examine the predictive influence of the independent variable on the dependent variable. The respondents were selected using purposive sampling, a non-probability sampling technique. This study assessed 100 LGBTQ students from Bestlink College of the Philippines, most aged 21–25 (62%) and identifying as bisexual (41%), with BS Psychology (25%), BS Criminology (17%), and BS Computer Engineering (13%) as the most common programs. Students reported all four parenting styles: authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and neglectful, which influenced life and career decision-making. Perceived parenting styles were related to life decision-making among young adults, including career-path selection, information gathering, coping with challenges, and independent decision-making. Parenting accounted for only 6.4% of the variation in LGBTQ students’ life decision-making, indicating a relatively weak relationship and suggesting that other factors also played important roles.