A comparative perspective on career mobility in Europe: career patterns and their effects on retirement timing

At the dawn of the 21st century most Western labor markets are facing a double issue. On one hand there is an increasing and all pervasive flexibilization of work, manifesting itself in most domains of the work. In Europe, as well as in the United States, the last decennia were characterized by increasing labor market mobility (M. B. Arthur & Rousseau, 1996), shorter job tenures, increase in flexible works forms. Workers no longer expect to keep the same job for the rest of their careers; in fact, most believe this kind of career does not exist anymore (Vandenbrande, Coppin, Hallen, Ester, & Fouarge, 2006). This cannot but have an effect on the structure of individual careers. Most contemporary career researchers agree that the so-called "traditional career", defined as a working trajectory unfolding within one or two organizations (Sullivan, 1999), has virtually ceased to exist, perhaps being the prospect of but a few. Most workers of today find themselves in a working path, which has been labeled as "transitional career", spanning across multiple organizations. It is per definition characterized by several transitions not only in the beginning of the career path, which was also the case for the youth just starting their traditional careers (kind of a search-and-settle behavior), but also in the ripe career stages (Wang & Shultz, 2010). Whether this shift can be seen as a positive transformation within the Western labor markets, is one aspect of the analysis we present in this text; nevertheless it is nothing short of a fact, which labor market policy has to take into account without fail. For instance, the European Union aims to facilitate and support this flexibilization, recognizing it as an integral trend of the contemporary economy (Vandenbrande et al., 2006).

The second issue pertains to a pressing demographic problem, the ageing population, which sets the questions pertaining to retirement in the focal center of public policy (Johnson, 1993). Provided the demographic pyramid becomes disproportionally inflated at its top (Demeny, 2003), the proportion of individuals in the ending career stages rises as consequence, which has already stimulated a heated debate on the adequacy of retirement age stipulations across most European countries. The issue will only intensify in the future, considering the growing life expectancy in Europe and advances in health care.

In this article we will explore the confluence of both issues, focusing on the effects of the increased transitionality in individual working careers on the timing of labor market exit in 13 European countries. We will discern the patterns of job mobility in Europe and show that mid-life career experiences are relevant as a determinant for retirement timing.