Nah der Wissenschaft und fern der Führung in einer Fach‑/Expertenlaufbahn?

In order to motivate and retain technical employees, representatives of strategic career management face the challenge of establishing alternative career paths in addition to the common leadership/management career. Surveying a sample of 629 doctorate holders from the STEM fields, we differentiated between five career paths within and beyond structured career models. Structured career ladders were predominantly present in major enterprises. Female participants less frequently reported to be part of a structured career path. Entering a leadership/management career seems to occur at a later stage compared to other paths. Generally, advancement on a leadership/management path was related to stronger increases in incentives than climbing up the technical/expert or project management ladders. Contrary to our expectations, we did not find members of a technical/expert career to work closer to basic research and their initial qualification than their colleagues on other career paths. Members of leadership/management paths reported to have significantly more leadership responsibility than those working on alternative paths.     

Ambivalenzen spätmoderner Identitäten: Vom proteischen Selbst in den neuen ArbeitsweltenAmbivalences of late modern identities: Thoughts on the protean self in the new work environments

This article of the journal “Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation.” sheds light on the consequences of the new economy for the identity of its employees. The new work environment opens up new prospects for the individuals, but at the same time increases the risk of failure. The flexible capitalism glorifies the “protean career” and implies an image of man that encourages people to internalize a circle of escalation which can lead to burnout and depression. Health promotion and a critical reflection of the neo-liberal idea of man are needed to escape from this fatal circle. What is needed is a critical social diagnosis. Leadership and management are responsible for the sustainable implementation of health-promoting working conditions.     

Rising Preferred Retirement Age in Europe: Are Europe’s Future Pensioners Adapting to Pension System Reforms?

This study investigates whether older workers have adapted their preferred retirement age to the pension reforms aimed at extending working life. Based on data from Eurobarometer and the European Social Survey in 12 European countries, the analysis shows that future pensioners have indeed increased their preferred retirement age and adjusted to the new credo of late retirement. However, the strength of the increase was found to vary between different groups of older workers: It is much stronger for the higher-educated than for the lower-educated. This finding supports recent concerns regarding the reemergence of social inequality in the retirement process.     

The Impact of Extending Working Lives on Youth Employment in Great Britain

ABSTRACT

The article investigates the association between youth and older workers’ employment participation in the United Kingdom using yearly data provided by the Labor Force Survey. Presenting a short state of the art, the paper shows that, with few exceptions, empirical analyses usually assume that increasing the labor market participation of the older workers does not affect negatively youth employment. Nevertheless, testing several variables and three different statistical models, the empirical part of the article nuances this evidence. The association between youth employment participation and older workers’ employment participation tends to be significantly after controlling for public policy outcomes.     

Working Longer May Be Good Public Policy,But It Is Not Necessarily Good for Older People

Older people are facing a changed set of expectations regarding work and retirement. Until quite recently early retirement was being encouraged. Today's older workers, however, are contemplating longer working lives amid policy concerns about the costs of social welfare associated with an aging population. While working longer is, almost universally, being promoted as a social and individual good this article argues that this policy shift is unlikely to change the situation of many older workers who would have needed to continue working anyway. It also argues that the emphasis on prolonged employment undervalues engagement in activities beyond employment. As well, it argues that the emphasis on prolonging employment neglects to account for the attendant risks for many of continuing to work or having to seek work and the potential health- and well-being-enhancing effects of retirement.     

Akzeptanz von Vergeltungsmaßnahmen am Arbeitsplatz: Befunde aus einer quasi-experimentellen UntersuchungAccepting retaliation in the workplace: findings from a quasi-experimental investigation

Is it acceptable when a company dismisses a worker because of a small property offense? What about workers who withhold information to their superiors because their performance bonus was canceled? This vignette study works out if and under which conditions bystanders assess these and similar retaliation measures as acceptable. Participants in an online panel were asked to judge the acceptability of different scenarios. The results show that respondents rather accept weaker than stronger retaliations, and that they rather accept measures that violate only organizational norms, but no legal norms. However, it also important what caused the reaction – for instance the acceptance of layoffs increases with the level of previous damage done to the employer. The characteristics of employers and employees described have, however, only a small impact on acceptance rates. Regarding the characteristics of survey participants, especially age had a significant impact – older persons are significantly less likely to accept norm violations than younger people.     

Labor Market Penalties for Mothers in Italy

We use a large Italian employer-employee matched dataset to study how motherhood affects women’s working career in terms of labor force participation and wages. We confirm that the probability of exiting employment significantly increases for mothers of pre-school children; however, this is mitigated by higher job quality, human capital endowment and childcare accessibility. Most importantly, the availability of part-time jobs reduces their probability of moving out of the labor force. Women not leaving employment after becoming mothers experience lower wages than women with no pre-school child, and there are no signs of this gap closing 5 years after childbirth. Contrary to previous literature, the wage gap penalty emerges only among women working full-time, thanks to the high protection accorded to part-time jobs in Italy.     

Anerkennung der beruflichen Kompetenzen von Flüchtlingen – Ein Beitrag zur IntegrationRecognition of professional competences of refuges – a contribution to their integration

In the coming years the integration of refugees in Germany will be a major challenge. The paper initially employs psychological theories, such as the self-determination theory, social identity theory and latent functions of employment, to reveal why the integration of refugees into the national labor market is an important factor for their integration into society as a whole. The labor market, confronting a shortage of skilled professionals caused by demographic change, shows a high potential for the integration of refugees. However, it appears that formal requirements in the current recognition process of occupational qualifications, for example in the craft industry, are still very high. The paper describes – on the basis of case studies – an optimized recognition process of occupational qualifications, in which, in addition to the mere checking of documents, the professional competences among the refugees are assessed on site at the business.     

Die Kombination von Lebenslauf- und Biografieforschung

The combination of life course and biographical research can only be done within the framework of mixed-method-approaches. As there is no established research program for this, good practice examples of existing projects in which methods have been combined have to be reflected. In this sense, this article discusses three case studies regarding the complementarity of life course and biographical perspectives and possible synergies emerging from the combination. The discussion is based on three sequential mixed methods projects investigating identity-related questions: identity work and employment, family foundations and the construction of national belonging. Four different forms of synergies can be analyzed: a) Complementary understanding of process dynamics, b) complementary understanding of different types, c) complementarity to avoid one-sided misinterpretations and to understand the role of ambivalences for the course of life, and d) expanded possibilities for the evaluation of theoretical models. Finally, the position is justified that the combination of life course and biographical research doesn’t have necessarily to be linked to a paradigmatic standpoint when setting up the study. Qualitative and quantitative studies may be considered of equal importance without the necessity to decide which method is core and which is supplementary.     

Working Hours Flexibility and Timing of Retirement: Findings from Europe

This study investigates how flexibility in working hours affects retirement timing. It tests the assumption that decreasing weekly working hours delays retirement and extends working life. Using data from four waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), we analyze whether a shift from full-time to part-time work delays retirement. Results show that older workers who reduce their working hours retire earlier than those who stay in full-time employment. The effect is stronger in Central and Eastern Europe than in Scandinavian countries. No interaction effects for gender and work strain are found. We conclude that part-time work at the end of the career, as a means to extend working life, should be reevaluated.     

Predicting End‐of‐Career Transitions for Baby Boomers Nearing Retirement Age

Retirement has traditionally been conceptualized as a point‐in‐time decision to physically and psychologically withdraw from the workforce on reaching a certain age. However, the expectations of older workers demonstrate a new retirement paradigm, with many more retirement trajectories. The purpose of this study was to examine actual career decisions being made by older workers and to understand sociodemographic factors that might differentiate their career trajectories. Data from the Health and Retirement Study (Juster & Suzman, 1995 ) were analyzed using multinomial logistic regression to compare 4 retirement trajectories (i.e., no retirement, full retirement, bridge employment, and encore career). Gender, age, education, marital status, health, and wealth differentially predicted the odds of pursuing each of the 4 retirement decisions. Career practitioners may use these results to help baby boomers make retirement decisions and provide them with appropriate education, guidance, and resources. Additional research is needed to examine other factors salient to each of the retirement trajectories.     

Sequentielles Mixed-Methods-Sampling: Wie quantitative Sekundärdaten qualitative Stichprobenpläne und theoretisches Sampling unterstützen können

Mixed methods sampling has played a minor role in methodological discussions so far. In particular, there is a lack of information about practical implementations and critical reflections of sampling decisions and sampling steps showing the benefits and challenges of different approaches. Therefore, this paper demonstrates by drawing on an empirical example, how quantitative secondary data analysis (German Socio-Economic Panel, Linked Employer-Employee Data, Employment History) can support the empirically informed formation of contrast groups for qualitative sampling plans as well as field access to these contrast groups. Furthermore, the article will show how an additional theoretical sampling can extend the empirically grounded composition of contrast groups and can build upon the quantitative secondary data. The discussion is based on a project with an explanatory sequential research design which combines quantitative secondary analysis with subsequent expert interviews with human resources managers in companies and narrative interviews with employees. The project focusses on the causes, practices, and consequences of employment relationships with an interrupted membership in the same employing organization (“recalls”).     

Desynchronisation und Populismus

This contribution takes its starting point from the assumption held by a theory of differentiation that the political shaping of society is challenged by an increasing desynchronization of distinct social sub-areas. Drawing upon the example of financial market regulation, we demonstrate how this political shaping capability is to a great extent successfully sustained or retrieved through the employment of hybrid organizations such as the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), of which we undertake an in-depth analysis in this paper. However, this comes at the prize of another (vertical) desynchronization at the intersection of well-established political institutions and the elementary processes of the formation of a democratic will. As a consequence, we develop an interpretation of post-democratic tendencies that exceeds common diagnoses of post-democracy and populism by offering a structural-temporal explanation of the perception that the formation of a democratic will and the political establishment are drifting apart.     

Attitudes towards Women's Work Roles and Women Managers in a Sports Organization: The Case of Turkey

In recent years the need to apply gender equality principles to all sectors of Turkish society has been widely acknowledged and has become an increasingly important issue because of the modernization and recent Europeanization project of Turkey. However, even as this has been acknowledged, attempts to apply gender equality in employment in sports organizations have been mostly ignored. This article reports on the attitudes towards women's work roles and women managers of 83 women and 138 men who work in the General Directorate of Youth and Sport (GDYS) which is the biggest national governing body for sport in Turkey. The findings of this study indicate that both female and male workers in the GDYS scored lower on their attitudes towards women's work roles and held more negative attitudes towards women managers. Although male workers scored higher on attitudes towards women's work roles than female workers they held more negative attitudes towards women managers. In addition, femininity scores were found to be the only predictor of attitudes towards women's career advancement. Finally, we discussed these findings regarding previous studies and the sociocultural context of Turkey.     

Transitions to part-time work at older ages: the case of people with disabilities in Europe

This paper analyses the labour-force transitions of older workers with disabilities in general, particularly workers’ transitions to and from part-time employment within a European context. Using the two first waves (2004 and 2007) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, we compare transitions between employment statuses for disabled and non-disabled individuals, even after controlling for different disability trajectories. In addition, we employ a multivariate framework to examine the determinants for remaining in part-time work in 2007 for those individuals who were part-timers in 2004. The results show that older people with long-term disabilities have a higher probability of staying in a part-time job than their compared counterparts. Policy-makers must promote part-time employment as a means of increasing employment opportunities for older workers with disabilities and support gradual retirement opportunities with flexible and reduced working hours.     

Konfundierte Ergebnisse durch ein zu stark beschränktes Design?

Recently C. Czymara and A. Schmidt-Catran published in this journal (KZfSS 2016 (2)) a factorial Survey-Experiment to contribute to the current debate on the inflow of refugees in Germany. The authors concluded from their Survey-Experiment that in particular highly qualified immigrants who show little culture distance should get accepted in Germany, while for instance Muslim immigrants would be more strongly rejected. In this comment it is argued that authors’ results probably suffered from a strong confounder bias. The employed experimental design also allows for a lot of alternative interpretations. Therefore, readers of the original article or further users of the data should be more cautious when interpreting the results.     

Fertility Intentions, Career Considerations and Subsequent Births: The Moderating Effects of Women’s Work Hours

Prior research indicates a negative relationship between women’s labor force participation and fertility at the individual level in the United States, but little is known about the reasons for this relationship beyond work hours. We employed discrete event history models using panel data from the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 2,411) and found that the importance of career considerations mediates the work hours/fertility relationship. Further, fertility intentions and the importance of career considerations were more predictive of birth outcomes as women’s work hours increase. Ultimately, our findings challenge the assumption that working more hours is the direct cause for employed women having fewer children and highlight the importance of career and fertility preferences in fertility outcomes.     

Fragmented Sisters? The Implications of Flexible Working Policies for Professional Women's Workplace Relationships

Much is being done by governments and organizations to help workers reconcile their family and employment responsibilities. One such measure has been the introduction of flexible working policies. While academic and policy debates focus on the barriers to flexible working, less consideration is paid to those who work alongside flexible workers. Through a gendered lens, this article focuses on professional women and explores the implications of UK flexible working policies for women's workplace relations in organizations that have traditionally been based on male models of working. Drawing on interviews conducted in three English organizations, it was found that the women's interests did not always coincide and that their social relationships, with respect to flexible working, involved both support and resentment. In particular, the women's interests were affected by organizational and job‐related factors and their stage in the life course. These findings illuminate the ways in which policies are negotiated at the level of daily workplace life and show that co‐workers are a pivotal part of the wider picture of flexible working.     

50 + among the 50+: who works long workweeks among older workers in Canada?

The focus of this short report is on workers who are 50+ years of age and who have a work schedule averaging 50+ hours per week (i.e. a ‘long workweek’), using Statistics Canada's linked Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) 2005 microdata, as well as selected qualitative study findings. The results show that the proportion having a long workweek is actually higher among older workers relative to others. Also, mean job satisfaction among older workers with a long workweek is at least as high as older workers without one, whether or not controlling for other factors. In terms of the characteristics of older workers with a long workweek, this is overwhelmingly a male-dominated group, and the majority are in a managerial/professional occupation. Thus, they do not exhibit the characteristics typically associated with those having poor quality schedules or employment. Since older workers represent a growing proportion of labour markets in industrialised nations, it is important that these workers access sufficiently attractive employment opportunities to keep them in the labour force. However, the findings provide yet another reminder that workers' scheduling realities and preferences are not homogeneous.     

Pensioners' political parties in Israel

Involvement and participation of older persons in politics and political systems reflect the extent to which they are integrated into their society. During the last two decades, political parties of pensioners have emerged in a number of countries, including Israel, and have run candidates in national elections. If only 10% of those aged 65 and older had voted for pensioners' parties in Israel, they would have qualified for two "pensioners" seats in the Knesset (Israel's parliament). However, they suffered complete defeat, as has been the case in most other countries. This article first describes the phenomenon of pensioners' political parties in Israel, examines the circumstances around their emergence, and presents their goals. Second, it identifies and analyzes the causes for their political defeat. Third, it discusses alternatives to political parties to promote the interests of the older population. Finally, implications for further research are raised.