Sustainable Career Trajectories in Switzerland: The Role of Psychological Resources and Sociodemographic Characteristics

Abstract

In the current volatile and insecure professional context, developing and maintaining sustainable careers has become a major concern. This study contributes to the advancement of research on sustainable careers by applying the career sustainability framework in a 7-year longitudinal study on Swiss workers’ career trajectories ( N = 789). We thus aimed to (a) identify various types of career trajectories based on employment status (i.e., full-time employment, substantial part-time employment, marginal part-time employment, unemployment), (b) distinguish sustainable and unsustainable trajectories by investigating their outcomes in terms of health (i.e., self-rated health), happiness (i.e., career and life satisfaction), and productivity (i.e., income and promotion), and (c) predict the probability of falling into a (un)sustainable career trajectory based on psychological resources (i.e., personality traits and career adaptability) and sociodemographic characteristics (i.e., age, gender, and education level). Optimal matching analysis revealed a 4-cluster solution, with the traditional full-time and stable career trajectories being the predominant ones alongside more transitional or discontinuous trajectories. Differences in health, happiness and productivity were found between the four types. Furthermore, our results showed that being a woman, having a lower education level and higher neuroticism and agreeableness scores increased the likelihood of experiencing an unsustainable career.