1. jane d Said,

   People that were not slaves did have a choice in what they wanted to do, but not to the extent we think of choice today. You’re career depended on your talents and how much money your family had. Women were likely to have no career other than motherhood. It also depended on where they lived. Spartans were required to become soldiers for a certain amount of time, Athenians were interested in philosophy, mathematics and the arts. If you were poor, you probably had to become a farmer or whatever career training was available to you. (i.e. a tradesman).
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2. wickham04 Said,

   Unfortunately ancient Greece was not a single entity, the only similarity between Greek polei was that they all spoke Greek. Ancient Greece also existed over a long period of time. There was a vast difference in the social structure from archaic to classical Greece. It is best that you pick a slightly more specific example, based on what you want in your article. For example Sparta in the Classical period would offer absolutely no chance of choice to anyone within its society. Spartan men became soldiers women ran the household and slaves did everything else, dependant on what their masters wanted them to do.
   In Classical Athens it could be argued that anyone could do what they wanted to. The reality though is that the Athenian political system favoured the rich, wealthy people could do anything they wanted and the poor could perform any variety of skilled labour. In Athens 1 man voted per household, this serves as an example of the superiority of a father figure over the family, it was ultimately his decision what professions his son/s would enter. I
   In Greece women had no choice of professions as they were only allowed to perform domestic duties. The choice of occupations in whole was not grand. There was always a choice of illicit occupations, but aside from those, merchant, labour, legal, skilled labour, farming and fishing, and priesthoods were the extent of occupations in ancient Greece. Farming in an Agrarian society was essential and both the poorest citizen and the richest undertook it as an occupation, but the later certainly did without a spade in hand.
   There were many other city-states in Greece and all varied in their systems but the most information can be found on Sparta and Athens during the Classical period.
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